 A couple things to note before the meeting first and I apologize for this, but there was some kind of confusion among the board while basically me kind of not seeing hands raised. So I think I'm going to do is I'm just going to turn my participant bar on. And for board members use rate and function to and now I can see it because I think a couple of people have their hand up and I was not able to see it. I think there might be a better technological solution. I can work out with Anna, but for now I think that works best and I will just kind of call in order. I know that hand raised function. I know that's a little clunky, but I think it's the best we can do virtually. Another thing I want to know is, you know, with a new board I think we need a retreat and also might be good to kind of just discuss kind of board culture, etc. I'm working with Libby and going to be working with the BSBA to get at least one training session on that. So I welcome other suggestions on speakers on board culture. I've talked to Amanda and a couple others about that. So it's a process that I'd like to get going over the next few months and also probably a good subject for our retreat and I'll work with Anna to get some dates that might work for retreat, I'm guessing will probably still be virtual. So, so we'll think about some ways to do that once we get some some date options. We may be able to do it, you know, safely in person with masks, which is how we did it last spring, or you might just want to split into a couple of zoom sessions but let's look for dates for that after the budget process and kind of in spring. And we may want to wait until after March, just because we have what three or four seats up just to make sure that we have, you know, a full board together and then we can definitely discuss things. We can discuss it throughout but things like like board culture, etc. And then the other thing is, we're talking about the budget. We have 20 minutes at the beginning schedule for public comment, I'd like to cut that down to five, and then add a 10 to 15 minute session for for public comment after the budget presentation which is our first item after the public comment of the budget. And then we'll take a quick break from this. I'll just give you a quick sense agenda. Because my thought is most people who probably want to comment, want to comment on the budget. Grant is going to show some changes on the budget, which might inform people and answer some questions beforehand. So, why don't we do five minutes of public comment at the beginning. And then we'll take a quick discussion where you can make comments with with kind of the new information in mind. So, let me know if anyone on the board thinks that doesn't make sense otherwise we can, we can do that. All right, excellent. So the first item is public comment again we are going to have public comment on the budget after the budget presentation so yeah you're welcome to speak on anything but if you want to speak on the budget you might want to hold a talk to that presentation is over so what we do this is if you get the participant list on the bottom of your screen. There's a pop up sidebar that gives you a raise hand function if you hit that. I can see it, if, if you're not able to find that. Just go ahead and raise your hand physically and I can see it in the screen. Okay, I see Tina. Okay, looks like just Tina. So Tina go ahead. Hey, I, I have a conflict today so I can't stay for the whole meeting so I thought I would speak up now about the budget. And I was at your last meeting in which you were reviewing the budget presented by the administration, which was a 2.8% increase definitely a reasonable increase for a school budget, but then granted a presentation explaining that, given the CLA and the lack of revenue in the state, all of a sudden taxpayers in Montpelio were asked to pay 10.2% more than they paid last year. What surprised me was that nobody said anything. So I understand you have a whole bunch of new board members and it's hard to jump into the budget. But the people that were there from before, the fact that nobody turned to Libyan said, geez, there's something we could put off for one year so that the people of Montpelio wouldn't have this tax burden. Got to me, I guess. And I understand that Grant is going to make a budget presentation tonight with some fund balance and some recalculations that's going to bring it down to a little over 8% maybe. And Grant, I thank you for that. But I have to tell you, when you talk about the budget today, I wish you'd think about a few things. One is, if you lost your job in March and you still don't have one, 8% is a lot of money. If you're a business downtown and your business is down 50% from last year, 8% is a lot of money. If you're a senior citizen like me, I didn't get an 8% increase in my social security. Last but not least remember what Andrew reminded you of at the last board meeting, which is income sensitivity doesn't take care of all taxes for all people. So just think about that and thank you very much for listening to me and good luck with your discussion. Thank you Tina. No one else on public comment. So let's go to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion? Do we need to take roll to open the meeting? Oh, we do need to take roll. I forgot that. And while I have the mic, just that I, for some reason when it's in my participants view doesn't allow me to do raise hand, but for me, it's under reactions. So if anybody has reactions on the bottom of their screen and wants to use the raise hand function, that's where I can find it. So that might be the case for other people. Yes, anyone having difficulty finding the raise hand function? Andrew found it. Jim, just really briefly. I just updated my zoom and now everything's totally different. I can see people raising their hands now and where I used to be able to raise the hand. I can't I raised the hand in the same place Mia raises her hand. So I think we are dealing with some some different versions and different people using different operating system so it might be in a couple of different places. Okay. So if anyone's having trouble raising hand. Just just let me know. Yeah, zoom is, zoom is tricky. You can also just physically raise your hand. I mean, I can see all your squares as well too. All right, and thanks for reminding me on a roll. Again, present Jerry here. Here. Yeah. Here. Brian here. Present. Andrew here. And Jill here. Sorry I was late. Thank you. Thank you. No worries at all. I've now under the consent agenda. I do have a motion to approve the consent agenda. And again, if you want to. Take something off the consent agenda and discuss it. You know, make that part of your, your motion. No one. I'll move the consent agenda. Okay. Thanks be a second. I'll second it. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Brian. Hi. Amanda. Yes. Andrew. Hi. Jill. Hi. Great content agenda passes. And now we're going to go ahead and introduce our, our budget presentation for the grant and Libby and the budget budget presentation. So take it away for, is this our fourth time? I think we're going to do Mike and the library media specialists first. Okay. Perfect. How do you want to start shirt? That works together. A short presentation for the library media specialist position. And we have Mike coming in who is the director of this area in our district. Monomy and Lauren Chabot with us as well to talk about the vision for that position and going forward. We also have Ryan Herity here to answer any questions concerning Union Elementary, although Ryan's not part of the formal presentation, but he's happy to answer any questions as well. So, Mike, take it away. I'll share my screen. And just in terms of questions, why don't we have Mike Sue and Lauren and thank you all for coming. And thank you, Ryan, as well. Why don't we have Ben do the presentation and then open it up to the board for questions, because I know there are questions about this before. And then we can go to your presentation, Libby and Grant, and then open it up for questions again. All right. Thank you and take it away. Thanks, everybody, for having us here. We know you kind of have a busy night, so we created a pretty short presentation. Some of you folks will remember the information from last year when we talked about Roxbury and the position there. You can go ahead there, Libby. So, to start, we have a lot of guiding structures that really guide this conversation. One is EQS, and Sue's going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But the other are the standards, just like any other area of curriculum that we're working on, we really build around those standards. And in this case, it's from ISD and the AASL. The library media specialists in our districts have been talking about a crosswalk of those two for a while now, and we've really articulated some areas of focus for our district that have been exciting. Aligned with that, we have some needs that are coming apparent. We're going through a literacy audit right now as a district that has been very enlightening. And one of the big areas for us to focus on is informational text and informational writing and research and analysis and opinion and all of those components that really delve into that library media world in so many ways right now. And then moving forward, we have to mush all those things together into a great kind of component that really speaks to all those needs and helps build capacity of our educators, as well as support our students in accessing the text and information. And that's where these amazing folks come in, the library media specialists. So, I'll turn it over to Sue for the next slide, I think. Thanks, Mike, for that intro. You're a tough act to follow. Okay. So, as Mike mentioned in the previous slide, the Vermont education quality standards do specify that schools should have a full-time library media specialist and sufficient staff for the program. And that is to support the literacy information and technology standards. We also support a schedule that provides opportunities for the library media specialist to collaborate with teachers as information research skills are integrated into their curriculum and also provide students with the opportunities to, it's the line that librarians use, locate, evaluate, synthesize, and present information and ideas within the content areas using technology integration. And what has also happened in recent years, if you take a look at the professional standards for the library media specialist and the educational technology specialist, every professional standard under the educational technology specialist endorsement is addressed in by one or more professional standards for the school librarian. And now I'll turn it over to Lauren. I was so excited to get started. Sorry about that. Thank you. So, we wanted to give you all glimpse kind of into what this looks like on a daily basis in a school, the role of the library media specialist. So, on any given day, we are doing any number of these roles most often, more often than not, more than one. So, certainly we are the librarian working on collection development, readers advisory, and research assistance. But in addition to playing that role, we are also a teacher providing direct instruction as needed. We're an instructional partner with every teacher in the building. We are an instructional coach to every teacher in the building to provide those professional development opportunities for them to grow and be independent and kind of train the trainer model. The heart of our training is in this information world. So, we are the experts in the building in the research process and digital literacy and information literacy. And we are technology leaders. We are on the forefront of emerging technologies and how they can be effectively used in the classroom for teaching, learning, assessing, creating, collaborating, sharing, etc. And last but not least, a traditional role of a librarian is to be an advocate for accessibility for everybody. So, making sure every member of our community has access to the information and learning opportunities that work for them and that help them move forward as learners. And on our last slide, we really just put together some resources and some articles for folks to look at. A lot of these talk about the changing role of librarians in these times. And it's from across different schools and states. So, there's some not apples to our interest comparisons, but it gives you an idea of the conversation. There's also the ed quality standards. A good one to look at is the University of Vermont School Library media specialist sequence. The things that are expected students within that program nowadays really connects with what Lauren just shared about typical day for a library media specialist. There's a couple other articles in there to check out as well. We didn't want to spend the whole night talking to you about this, so we just put together this short presentation. And I think we're ready for some questions if you have them. Great questions for Susan, Michael, Lauren, Mariah, and two of these here as well, if you have questions for Ryan. Mia? Yeah, thank you for that presentation. As we throughout the conversation at the last board meeting and ever since then, I think this has been kind of solidifying in my mind of what this looks like. And the thing that I've come to is that this position in the schools is a resource for kids and the teachers to access information in the way that information is now available in ways that it was not available when I was in elementary or middle school. And I think the one thing that would help round out that picture for me is if anyone, and this might be a question for Ryan or if it might be a question for Sue or Lauren, what does it look like when one of the students at Union Elementary with this new, as the position is now being established there? What does it look like when they go to there and participate in their special at some point during their school week with these changes? Because I can picture what it looks like for a kid to walk into the Union Elementary School Library and take a book off the shelf. But it's hard for me to wrap my mind around like, so what are the students going to do? Ryan, why don't you start with that? And then maybe, Lauren, you could follow it up with what the MSMS vision is not in COVID world, but in typical world. Yeah, no, absolutely. Mia, that's a really great question. And it's something that Merida Fry and I talked about pretty extensively last week. And it's a shift in the model that we've had in the past. So in the past, those two positions were separate for special. So if you were in third or fourth grade, you had access to technology as a special. And if you were in kindergarten, first or second grade, you didn't have access to technology during the specials rotation. And really, that was because of logistical challenges, students only have special for five days a week. And so PE is twice. And so when you factor in art and music, that just leaves one more special for the week. So the shift really is going to be around what the students are doing during the library time and during that technology integration time. And you know, right now, I think we're still developing what that's going to look like. So that's going to take a lot of teacher participation and identifying what those critical skills and standards are that we want to see at each grade level. I know the skills that that are when you talk to a kindergarten teacher, and you ask them, you know, what would you like the students to be able to do as far as technology that looks very different than what you'll see with a fourth grade student. And so we really need some time to develop exactly what those learning blocks are going to look like. And, you know, I anticipate that it's going to be a very collaborative process. And, you know, it's going to be slow and steady. And, you know, I know that's not a very detailed response for you. But, you know, for a kindergarten student, I would say that there are some very explicit skills that Merida will be teaching those students throughout the year. Really basic things like how to get onto certain apps, how to navigate, you know, a lot of digital citizenship curriculum. So how to stay safe on the internet, that will be a really big focus, especially for our younger students as they start having their first introductions to be an online. And then, you know, we're not, we don't plan to take away, you know, students access to books and students access to library and great literature. That's still something that's going to be extremely important to us. And so really it's going to be about balancing those two things throughout the year. Other questions? Lauren, do you want to follow up from MSMS? Because the high school is so different. Well, Ryan, I think you did a great job with the vision for what that can look like at Union. I think the library and tech world blend so they're so intertwined now that I don't see there really being a division at the middle school. I mean, I there's only one specials class, a special like a real class that kids come to the they come to the library, but it's it's called tech tools. And it's a blend of research, website evaluation, digital citizenship, all, you know, all of those skills in it. They blend, like I said, they go hand in hand together. And then also, I'm in the classroom working with teachers and kids are getting those skills in their classroom with their content teacher and me supporting as needed. And they're certainly coming into the library for literature as well. And for book talks and, you know, coming to check out books and that's still happening a lot. So I don't see them as being separate, but intertwined. I just want to thank you all for putting together that presentation for us and explaining what the vision is. I think anytime that the budget shows a cut of a position, I think it's important for the community to understand and be on board with that. And certainly, what you presented tonight definitely helps me as a board member understand why we went in that direction. So thank you so much. And I know you're all incredibly busy. And so to add anything to your plate at this at this time, I feel bad, but it's very, very helpful. So much appreciated. When Lauren, when you projected the slide, all the different things that a library media specialist, your position does, that was one of my main concerns is just like, is there too much on the plate of these individual teachers? And certainly, I want to just give you all props because I know, at least at the middle school, I don't know about at the high school, but Lauren is also serving as a pod co teacher this year. So she's doing her whole specials curriculum, and trying to teach that asynchronously and then also additionally in person, acting as a pod co teacher. So I think our specials teacher deserve a huge round of applause this year, because it's amazing the amount of work that you're having to do. And the way that you've pivoted and adapted to this situation is really fantastic. I also really appreciate the in house PD model that you talked about. So just training the teachers to incorporate technology into their curriculum. Yeah, I think it's more of a comment than a question. So thank you. Thanks, Emma. Jill. Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to add my thanks. I have a middle schooler and I've been really blown away by the word savvy comes to mind in the best way possible. As we're navigating this crazy world that we're living in and the crazy political atmosphere, I can't think of anything more important than digital literacy. And the fact that it's blended into their school day with their other subjects makes it so I think it's incredibly effective and actually sort of a lasting skill set that won't be unlearned. So I'm as a witness to it, really blown away and impressed by what you folks are accomplishing at the middle school. And Jerry. Thanks, Jim. Yeah, thanks for the presentation. Really exciting stuff. Just a point of clarification. Maybe this is for Libby. This was not a cut position. Was it my understanding is that it was a temporary position to begin with? No, it's a cut position. The person who had held the position retired very late in the year last year. And so the person currently in the position was hired, not in a traditional hiring period. Okay, thank you. And all that? Yeah, so I just had that question specifically for UES. So Ryan and for Sue and Lauren, do you see so when we're when we are envisioning a program like this, that is so important. And I know that the confusion for me last in the last board meeting was about, are we cutting this position? And then we're basically splitting kind of like the role of the librarian and adding a person to help with the bulk circulation, right? And so is this just trying to understand kind of like the plate that is being given to the librarian? And in terms of the integration piece of supporting the teachers as well as supporting the students. So that's kind of like the clarity and into creative like for envisioning a model where we need that we need to support our teachers with the technology piece that we want all of our students to have and that they need that support in addition to creating a model that's going to support all of our students with a technology piece. So I guess my question is do you what is the load look like when we're envisioning this new model at the current budget for next year? And I mean and Michael can also anybody can answer my question from those in the ground. Sue do you want to talk to that because you had a significant load and we added the library position the library system position last year. I think Lauren has been more used to that position right Lauren because that's been in there the library system position has been at MSMS for a bit longer. Sue how would you answer that question? Well one of the things I would say is that in addition to everything that Lauren was listed on that slide there are a lot of clerical tasks that the librarian needs to take care of as well. Shelving books is a huge part processing books new books as they come in there's just a lot that work that a library assistant can help with that frees up the professional educator to then work with the teachers and the students using that skill set and providing that professional development so that it's not always the library media specialist or a standalone teacher teaching every student in the school how to use certain programs but in fact we're there to help the teachers learn how to use these and support them as Lauren said she's there to provide support for the teacher who's also introducing them I would say really it's it's taking some of that time that is spent in a non-professional manner the non-teaching manner and allowing the teacher the library system is doing that and the and the librarian is free to do the teaching part of the job does that help that was a lot of rambling I'm sorry before Lauren add on yeah I would also add on to that too that it's a model that really grows the position at the middle school was the library media specialist was combined with the tech integration in 2009 actually and over those years the staff become more able to be independent and they have that thirst for knowledge and learn more on their own and I now we now have a staff at the middle school that is very tech savvy and they teach each other and they take on a lot of that load to help one another as well and so I mean it's like what we want with our students they're becoming independent learners and finding stuff on their own and I just I think it's a work in progress always but if you build that culture of constantly wanting to learn and improve that you know the staff ends up supporting each other a lot I would love to hear from Ryan too and Michael yeah yeah the only thing I was going to add on to that just became specifically about UES is that we have teachers that over the past year have grown so much as far as their ability to navigate technology just being forced into the digital world that we've all been forced into for remote teaching we have seen a learning curve like no other teachers that haven't been able to do things have just adjusted so quickly and are now teaching other people how to do things and sharing resources and ideas and you know there's there's really a lot of positive things happening with our staff so I do feel good about that the other thing that I want to give Mike Barry kudos on is the way that our district has been able to facilitate district-wide professional development and Lauren and definitely Susan at the high school you know both of them have been able to you know provide professional development for our teachers at district days that have been very beneficial and the teachers have self-selected that based on whether or not they need it and I think that type of professional development model I think is is really effective so those are just some things that are doing that seem to be working well and I was just going to add an example that's happened recently where at the high school they are working on units of study and recently several teams content teams invited Sue to be a part of that work which in the past may not have been as an obvious connection and so like like Lauren I said the the position involves and the work evolves every year you're kind of doing different things and I think it's exciting to see that curricular connection and the instructional connection coming to that resource that is Sue and that is Lauren and that we're doing so much curricular and instructional work right now that I can totally see that happening at UES as well to be able to build in the resources of the library into that work thank you Demi you're muted thanks again to everyone for for coming I was very very helpful and it looks like Emma has another question just a quick one I didn't see the present your presentation in the board packet can you get that to us thanks um thanks again for coming very very helpful and now I think we're on to Libby and Grant's presentation which I think is our fourth one is going to involve some changes to get the tax to address the tax rate concerns that Tina and others have raised so go ahead go for it okay and I guess Libby will share the screen thank you Susan and Lauren and Mike and Ryan and I'm uh I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that this budget presentation is uh is just a an abbreviated presentation that shows changes so it's more like 12 pages instead of 40 you're welcome so if you go to the next slide thank you so the changes there the only expense change was to career center tuition so what happened was the central Vermont Career Center announced their tuition for next year and it was surprisingly lower than what we anticipated so our expenses went down about 11 000 not a dramatic drop but you know we'll take it the more dramatic change is what we made to try to reduce the Montpelier tax rate and so what we did was we had talked about increasing the fund balance by I think it was like 60 000 or something like that we ended up increasing the fund balance revenue by 150 000 which is like nearly a penny and a half decrease on the tax rate we also increased the dollar yield we had talked about a smaller amount but we increased the dollar yield by a hundred dollars so basically instead of going with the tax commissioner recommendation of a 235 dollar decrease we're going with the assumption that it's only going to drop 135 dollars and I think Andrew would also be able to provide some insight into whether that makes sense or not and I think the the ed fund and the economic picture for Vermont is looking better so I don't think this is a high risk so with those changes we've reduced the tax rate by 3.2 cents it's still an 8.3 percent increase but it's a lot lower than it was it was sitting at 10.2 next so I'm not going to go into the details of the program expenses but this is more for your reference in case you want to look at it later the only number that changed is the career center tuition which is circled I'm also going to give you the next slide which is the revenue slide that's got the details for once again just for your reference there's two numbers circled here fund balance instead of like a 10 000 increase it's now 160 000 increase from year to year and the ed spending of course that number changed because that's the balancer if you go to the next slide this is where we'll spend the decent amount of time this is the updated tax rate calculation chart you'll see now that the increase in education spending is only two percent it was sitting at 2.7 last time we spoke but because of that increase in fund balance revenue it dropped down to two percent I will tell you that I this is the lowest increase that we've had since I've been here at least as a point of reference in FY 21 the increase in ed spending was 4.7 percent so it's a very very reasonable increase as Tina Muncie mentioned it is a very reasonable whenever whenever you're talking about routine salary increases stable or increasing enrollment and a 10 health rate increase it's very reasonable equalized pupils hasn't changed and likely won't change by much it might be tweaked a little bit but that's a pretty firm number as far as what we're being told we increase the property yield about 100 as I mentioned and it still needs to be set by law ultimately that won't happen until after town meeting day so the estimate that we come up with is going to be as good as it as it gets and we'll see how it plays out but I don't think it's a huge risk as you may recall last year we used a higher number than the tax commissioner's recommendation and we ended up being very close so I think it's reasonable Montpelier tax rate dropped 3.2 cents Roxbury's dropped another 2.6 and of Montpelier's tax rate increase which is sitting now at 14.4 cents 11.3 cents relates to factors the following factors equalized pupils dollar yield merger incentive and cl a one thing I didn't mention was budget so the vast majority of this increase is associated with factors that we don't control unfortunately next please so this slide just is showing the updated tax rate impacts and once again two-thirds of folks receive some kind of an income sensitivity so the dollar amounts specifically for Montpelier those dollar amounts may be lower for most taxpayers I recognize though that the percentage increase is still going to be you know around that 8% but the dollar amount impact is going to be lower for most folks and you'll see for Roxbury those numbers are negatives so there's actually a reduction for Roxbury because the cl a went up dramatically instead of down as we expected and this is just an updated residential tax rate history slide the takeaway again I sound like a broken record but we can't control the common level of appraisal and without the cl a Montpelier's tax rate increase is five cents over those five years and really four years if you go year to year so that's like 1.2 cents per year or 0.8% a very reasonable increase annually and obviously if you're looking at Roxbury even with the cl a factored in Roxbury's tax rate is much lower than it was before the merger and this is a new slide I just felt compelled to throw in there it shows the disconnect between our education spending and the resulting tax rate and this is Montpelier's tax rates since the time of the merger as you can see f y 19 had the highest increase in ad spending by far and the tax rate actually decreased you'll see in f y 22 we have the lowest increase in ad spending by far and the increase is 14.4 cents a higher increase in the tax rate than ever way higher than ever and the increase in ad spending is way lower than ever so this just shows you you know it's not just the budget it's those other factors like cl a and dollar yield those are the two big ones next so as I mentioned with increasing enrollment and with routine just routine salary increases and with the large health rate increases that we've been seeing from year to year it would be extremely challenged to try to come in with a level at level funded education spending amount doing so would require a decrease of almost $420,000 the only way we could get there since nearly 75 percent of our budget is salaries and benefits the only way to get there would be to make personnel reductions so we would have to look at classroom teachers where we had the lowest class sizes we would look at eliminating that proposed intensive needs teacher that we've been so excited about at the elementary school would also have to look at other reductions because you'd need to come up with about the equivalent of five teacher positions to get that we could maybe not have that many reductions if we looked at facility projects and maybe deferring maintenance but that's a dangerous and slippery slope bottom line is even if we were to do this which would have an impact on kids the tax rate increase in Montpelier would still be double digit because once again those primary tax rate rate drivers are not the budget they're those other things like CLA and dollar yield and there's only a few more slides to go the outlook slide I didn't change anything here but I think it's important for us to keep in mind some of those factors that we're going to have to remember and keep in mind as we build not only this budget but the next few years budgets now we'll just go to the summary slide so the total increase the total budget increase is 2.8 percent but that's not the important number the important number is the increase in education spending because that's what factors into tax rates education spending increases two percent I talked about the residential tax rate from Montpelier it's still an 8.3 percent increase Roxbury is a four percent decrease same budget much different tax implications at least at 8.3 percent we are below what the estimated average statewide increase is which is at 9 percent so at least we you know we've gotten below that bar and then the final slide is just you know for questions it mentions the only meeting that we have left now is the informational hearing which is the day before the town meeting day where we'll put all these slides back together we'll go through the whole thing for the public right now as you've been told because of the legal requirements for timelines on publicizing your warning we need to approve the budget tonight so this is the time for you to ask any kind of questions that you need to work your way through before you approve the budget and the warning so I'll turn it back over to you Jim I don't think I don't know if Libby has anything else to add Libby I do not this is the grant show so I'd say if board discuss it up right um so we'll have board discussion and then uh I'm not sure we have any members of the public still around um if we do we can invite them um Jill sure so um I for those of you who don't know I work at the tax department in the property valuation in our view division so our team actually calculates the CLA for all the various municipalities so I feel it's really important to um try to give the cliff's no expression of what the CLA is trying to accomplish I am so I think the way that grant has laid this out is exactly right and I think it's really important for us as a board and for the community to understand that the CLA has zero relationship to our education spending decisions what the CLA is designed to do is basically make up for the fact that what our properties are listed at is not what they're going for on the open market so what we do with the tax department is we do a three-year study analyzing all of the sales that have happened and we compare what properties went for in those sales to how they're listed in the grand list and then that determines how far off the grand list is and the grand list is actually the number on your actual property tax bill of what your property is valued at and being assessed at and so the CLA is a factor designed to make up for that and apply that to the tax rate maybe I'm not helping maybe I'm making it worse so essentially Montpelier has not done a reappraisal since 2010 so my house here in Montpelier has not been reappraised since 2010 based on the sales analysis my property and a lot of properties in Montpelier are going up substantially in value so whether you have your tax rate at this and a very you know close to 100% CLA or your tax rate is this and your CLA is going up you're essentially paying you'd essentially be paying the same amount because what it's supposed to be is representing the fair market value of of our property and then taxing that value and the reason this is so important and why we do it every year in the state is that we are a statewide education funding system so this would be just Montpelier's problem or just Roxbury's problem if we were our own microcosm but this is actually impacting every every municipality in state and the education fund for the state so I just wanted to really try to try to help folks get to the understanding of what the CLA is without their eyes glazing over that it is a real estate value factor that is calculated and applied to your tax rate to try to represent what your property should be assessed at does that help or does that just make it worse yeah that was very it was a very good explanation Jill I know there's a lot of confusion out there about about how tax rates are calculated in general it's it's a Byzantine it's a Byzantine system and I think there's a lot of misunderstanding so thank you. You're right Jill for every every budget season going forward you're hired for the CLA explanation and the idea behind it really is is to be fair because if if Jill's house hasn't been reappraised in 10 years and mine just was both of our houses might be worth a million but I'm paying taxes on a million dollar house and she's only paying taxes on a $700,000 house so her rate should be higher so that we're paying the same amount in taxes so it's really to try to equalize that. I have two one is a follow-up to what Jill just said sort of a this is my way of wrapping my head around the broader picture and then I have another question which I'll hold because it looks like many of these hands are probably to this issue so I can I'll just hold my other question but on the point of it being fair is it also and to the point of it being we are a statewide education fund is it also so that the more affluent affluent communities in our state are not the only places where a high quality education happens is it also does the CLA also account for that or is that something is that more of the where the equalized people part comes in or is it not of anything to do with that? If that's to me I would say that is part of it that is not the only driver but it is part of it for sure it's more clear just didn't reappraise forever but we could afford our low tax rate on our high property high value properties than to heck with everybody else but we are all part of that one system and so all the towns have to sort of be recalibrated to the closest possible fair market value and assess that way and this is how they get there. And and I would add that because it's a statewide system there is one factor that every district in the state is measured against and that's that property yield and the fact that all districts are measured against that one same number then some you know some communities are going to pay a higher tax rate depending on their spending there and some are going to pay a lower but at least it's the same factor that every district is is held as a standard. Do you have a second question? Actually can I just follow up? Yeah, I want to leave the subject. I'm confused still. So I just kind of want to blame somebody so who can I blame with this CLE? And I am stuck with what you said that like our properties haven't been reappraised since 2010 so it is that so I'm like just trying to understand so then you just take the whole thing and like you kind of do the appraisal not you but like the tax department then says okay well that that I'm just like trying and late terms uh well this house hasn't been appraised but we know that this house is uh cost this much and that's how we're going to assess is that I'm trying to understand that and in my late term can I add something? So do you want me to keep answering? I'm happy to take a stab but go for it Andrew. And I actually have a question for you too Jill but Amanda and Mia this this goes to what you were both asking about on this it this pertains to equity because it's the city or the municipality a town if you live in a town that's responsible for the appraisals and so if you have one town that is saying okay we're not going to reappraise for 15 years in another town that reappraises once every three years that town that reappraises once every three years is going to be harmed without the CLA so the CLA is meant to provide equity this is one of its purposes is meant to provide equity from municipality to municipality so that this centralized education funding system can't be gained does that make sense and and the question I have for you Jill in addition to this is I regularly I feel like I regularly get asked the question and this year is a really good example uh the city of Montpelier so first of all our property taxes have the education tax but there's also the municipal tax on our property tax bill and the municipality if the municipality if their budget is going up two percent do they have to adjust for the CLA do they because the municipality does the city of Montpelier have to adjust for this factor dill no we can blame them right can I have me questioning myself no no they don't yeah so this is something I bring this up because if the city for example is saying okay we're we're going to really reel it in this year our budget's only going up two percent it's below the rate of inflation that that is true but I'm just I'm just explaining that it's not always apples to oranges when we're talking to taxpayers about the types of decisions that we make because there's so much that's outside of our control here um and I just think it's an important it's an important note to make thanks for that um Andrew is that your question yeah and Mia did you have a second question that didn't get answered okay let's go back to Mia yeah I wanted to when I read the warning the warning the number on the warning is um 17 166 dollars but I think the number on the budget slide that has the totals grant is 17 sorry 17 366 and I feel and so I just want to make sure if we're voting on the warning we're voting I'm not I want to which which number should it be it it should be both I know it's confusing um you don't see that 17 166 because I've factored in the capital fund as an expense as part of our budget but the capital fund is technically a separate article oh okay the spending per pupil in article three it's without that 250 and that and then in four it shows that capital fund in there so that's the 17 3 36 that you've been seeing in my slides okay thank you it is correct but a very good question okay thanks I'm I'm done thanks great thanks Mia uh Jerry thanks um I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to ask but we got asked about this from uh um someone in the public why is the per student cost in Roxbury so high compared to Montpelier is there anything student can do about that there's very few students but we still need professionals we still have requirements for professionals out there so the class sizes are incredibly small um however we still need a third fourth grade teacher we need a special educator we need a title one interventionist you need a principal you need an administrative assistance you need ias you need similar resources adult resources or human resources rather to make sure the day goes smoothly and safely and kids learn and there's a smaller amount of kids a significantly smaller amount of kids it's it's like the economy of scale question you know it's it's even if we group grades together you're still not getting a class size as large as we have at our other schools because there's just not enough kids the other thing that I would add to what Libby said is you still have the same cost of of maintaining a building of heating a building whether you have 10 kids or 100 kids so it's those fixed costs and the fact that you can't have a high class size both of those things kind of play into it yeah the building is owned though right yes i'm just talking about like maintaining like if you have to repair a roof or you have it and heating it um that kind of thing so um just i'm sorry one more thing on that I know we recently talked about energy efficiency and I know when we got our solar the person said oh you should put solar on Roxbury school it would be perfect would that be any way to save in the future at all uh we just did we just added right um there were I think there were like two or three electric meters that weren't associated with the solar farm we have just added so that every one of our electric meters is linked to solar so we do get credits for all and that reduces our electric bill um and then another thing that um just kind of associated with that the second quarter report that you just approved you'll see on the fund balance that we've added a few things for one-time expenses that we want to do and one of the things that's on there that you'll see now is the whole idea about heat pumps we need to we haven't enough that we've kind of place-holded against the fund balance to do that we just need to make sure that the engineering makes sense that it's that it's gonna work well within all the rooms at Roxbury so we are trying to move forward with those energy efficiencies and in some cases we already have moved forward with some of those so yeah we're we're continuing to try to do what we can but it's it's really the the fact that it's there's so few students that makes it hard with few students it means cost per pupil is higher okay thank you Emma um yeah I'll just comment quickly on the the Roxbury per pupil thing too is that I just don't think it's a fair comparison to compare Roxbury to Union Elementary School which is a much bigger school or Main Street Middle School as um we we got an email from a member of the public doing exactly that and I think it's more fair for them to look at other schools that are of similar size if they want to get a clearer picture of where we're at per pupil spending you know it's a small community school which holds a lot of value and um you know there's a lot of similar size schools around Vermont and we could take a look at what their per pupil spending is and that would be a more fair comparison um a couple of questions um the you know when you talked about the potential you know in order to cut to get to a level funded about a level funded budget and you talked about cutting the intensive needs position is that the autism program position that we were talking about yes okay and didn't we didn't we discuss that in fact that position even though there is an expense in our budget it can ultimately save us money yes the idea is hopefully it will lead in less outside placements so that we can keep the kids in the school so yeah I'm not advocating for that it's one of the things that it's like you know um biting off your nose despite your face it's something that would harm us in deferred maintenance is the same thing it would save us one year but it would bite us later yeah I think um I think that's exactly right that's that's how I see it and I'm not interested in those types of cuts I think um you know I this is an incredibly frustrating position to be in and you and Libby and the whole admin team have done an amazing job putting together a really responsible if not conservative budget and then it's so frustrating to have so many of these factors out of our control that end up resulting in um this frustration from community members that the increase is going to be so high and it just um you know it's just one of those frustrating years and I think you know maybe the answer lies more at the state level than the city level of you know the school board level you know maybe we need to look at the way we fund schools and look at the model that we're using and lobby the state to change the model rather than school boards um so another question and I'm not sure if this is like a grant Libby or Andrew or Jill anyone chime in but um I was interested in Tina's comments I think she's very thoughtful and intelligent and she talked about you know that income sensitivity doesn't take care of everybody and I want to know sort of who are the people that fall through the cracks I think Grant you had said something like two-thirds of Montpelier residents qualify for I'm not sure if you're referring to the Homestead Act or what um income sensitivity is provided for the school budget and the tax increase but um could you speak to sort of what what portion of the population are falling through the cracks in terms of what threshold will people not qualify for them yeah I'll start but I have a feeling Andrew could probably jump in and give more more insight than me but I think the rule of thumb is if if the household income is around 90 000 or so if you're above that then you get no income sensitivity at all if you're below that you start to get it and it's graduated the lower the household income is the higher the income sensitivity is um but when I talk about um and I think Andrew made this point so when I say the the impact for a hundred thousand dollars in Montpelier is 144 dollars more than than last year it might not be 144 dollars because people get income sensitivity but they also got that income sensitivity last year so their percentage increase on their tax bill is still going to be pretty much the same as everybody else around 8 percent so that's why you know the dollar impact on that chart may be a little lower but the impact that they feel percentage wise might be the same um but to answer your question the only people who don't get any income sensitivity at all are those households that are making over 90 000 dollars or maybe a hundred thousand now um but Andrew do you have other thoughts to throw in? Yeah so the in 2020 it was um under about 140 000 of household income qualified for income sensitivity that might be changing Jill I don't know if you have any insights into that this is a perennial issue and feel free to unmute yourself and chime in um on those thresholds because I think they are going to be changing a little bit but um in general households earning less than 47 000 dollars are pretty well covered though there is a maximum property tax adjustment of five thousand six hundred dollars and um so you know if you had a household earning less than 47 000 that lived in a really high value property uh you know they wouldn't be totally covered because there is a maximum uh level of income sensitivity but the general point and and I think this is a really good question and I haven't analyzed it for Montpelier and I actually think as part of our treat this summer it would be great to have either Jake Feldman from the tax department who's a Montpelier resident or Chloe Wexler who is at the joint fiscal office they're the two of the state's leading experts on this they calculate the tax rates um or play it play a critical role in calculating the tax rates with Jill's team um I think having somebody like that come in and show us like hey a household earning 60 000 a year this is what it would mean for them this kind of increase but in general the way that it works is the percentage increase for property taxpayers is going to be the same percentage increase for income taxpayers so although income income sensitized they're really paying on essentially an income tax um although they are paying a lesser amount in tax than those property owners who make more than 140 000 a year in income are uh the percentage increase in their tax bill is is I think it's supposed to be exactly the same that's essentially how it reads in statute but it might be approximately the same so essentially if you had a 10 increase to a family that had an education property tax bill of $4 000 on their $200 000 home they would see an increase of $400 if you had their next door neighbor who earns they have a household income of $100 000 same value house they're paying $3 000 in property taxes this is a hypothetical their property tax bill would go up $300 instead of $400 so the percentage increase should be the same especially between 47 000 and 140 000 as it is for those that are paying just on property above 140 000 and just a point of clarification is does fixed income like social security count so as part of your income sensitivity filing it's based on the homestead declaration form that you file with your personal income taxes and the point that um the point that Tina made is actually a good one in that it's based on your last year's income so you could have a family that was doing really well in 2019 that lost some serious income in 2020 uh that they they aren't receiving any kind of income sensitivity um and and that that was a point that um yeah that it was a good point because you pay based on your previous year's income um i know me as a design but i want to ask i have a follow-up question to that how does property tax affect renters because i think it's an equity question for people who you know for them my guess is the the person responsible for the property tax of the landlord and what measures his or her or it if it's an entity's income and does that get passed to does that often i would get passed to renters in the form of rent increases and is that in some ways regressive sorry if i just open a can of worms i don't think you open a can of worms i'm gonna try to answer it because i like to be corrected by Andrew and Jill um if it's a rental property then that would be a a non-residential tax rate that would be applied to that property the landlord would be paying that and then yeah i assume that if i'm a landlord i'm factoring that into whenever i set my my rent but the thing to remember about um non-residential tax rates are they are not impacted by our local budget at all it's a statewide um rate that's divided by the cla period so um we don't even really in the presentations we don't even talk about non-residential because it's not impacted by our budget period okay comes up from Andrew um i can i can decide quickly for folks who are income sensitized in their renters there's a renter rebate program that they can actually submit to the tax department and it's based on a per county basis of what rents are so there is sort of that additional aid if you will for folks who are needing income sensitivity that they can actually apply to get part of their rent reimbursed under the under the theory and probable likelihood that the landlord has passed that the property tax is on to their renters and i i should add i feel like the the tax department scott administration and legislature ways and means really deserves some kudos for updating the renter rebate program last year to eliminate what used to be just a massive cliff for lower middle and middle income families that rent or individuals who rent so great uh mia one was the um a comment i forgot about earlier so i um regarding increasing the amount of the fund balance from what you had originally planned grant to use to um to where it is now i just wanted to say i i support that wholeheartedly because to me it doesn't make any sense for the district to be sitting on a very large savings account essentially when it and have that result in a uh a significant tax rate so i just wanted to voice my approval for that and then when um jerry mentioned the um uh question about the per pupil spending in roxbury um i just wanted to uh emily your point um of comparing the roxbury school to other schools of its size i think is a really good one and we should probably do that in a very in a real way outside of the budget conversation as part of just more long-term planning for our district um i i think that would be a real it feels like a really important conversation to start because um i do appreciate the point you made and i do think it is a valid point that members of the public are raising about just when we think about the large pot of money and resources that we have what are the most efficient and effective ways for us to be spending that that pool of resources to get um quality education for kids so i would outside of obviously there's nothing that we're going to do in this budget um regarding that but i think it's good to start that conversation and have it be a real process and a real conversation that the community has about how to use those resources i just before we get to the next question i just wanted to also address the fund balance because there might be some people that say well you're still only using 400 000 fund balance for revenue we got to be real careful with how we manage fund balance because say we put a million dollars of fund balance in this year and next year we don't have any at all that drop of revenue of a million dollars is exactly the same as increasing your expenses by a million dollars so the reason why we're stopping at 400 is because we're going to have to manage kind of a downward slope a gradual downward slope of that each year so that the tax rate doesn't spike up so you know i'm thinking 400 000 this year maybe 400 000 the next year then when when we don't have to worry about um absorbing that two cent loss and merger incentive maybe we can drop it down a little bit more um and you know we need to have something in case libya and i've talked about special ed funding formula you know we could lose special ed revenues dramatically in one year um the equalized pupil um weighting study could make us lose pupils and those things could dramatically increase our tax rate so we need to to have enough money that we can gradually drop that down each year so i'm comfortable with 400 000 i think that still leaves us with enough to be able to manage it but that's kind of why we're not doing all of it in one year because yeah everybody would love it this year but they would hate it next year uh i love it yeah i mean and i and i also think it's important to think of the context that we're in and you know covet and how that relates to people losing their jobs this year i haven't seen the unemployment how many people lost jobs in in montelier but you know that's something that we should you know just like that has been thinking a about you know how all of the work that we're doing and what how contextualizing the realities of our communities right like and uh how you know i know a few people who's uh second person lost their job and they haven't been able to recover it and a lot of their savings are going so like how does that you know just like thinking about that i also find our information a little bit inaccessible for someone like me for someone like the public when we're talking about clas and i'm just wondering um for march first what kind of job we can do around like accessibility and like how to talk about this in like the latest terms and um and so like i'm envisioning something like here are the factors that are out of our control and boom boom boom explain that that could really inform the people in our community about how like all this budget processes go and and how they they relate um and then what else did i have yeah so i think that that's where i'm going just like the accessibility uh someone who's new to the boards by my third time um and you know like trying to understand all of it i am pretty you know i i like numbers i'm a bookkeeper and i know budgets and things but you know this is huge so just like thinking about how we do this process um and how do how do we engage this part of the work and and so yes like i i wouldn't want to see any cuts around like those dreams of having support for kids with autism or or or that um but yeah like i i also think that it the the fund balance like we also need to think about the context of the reality that we're in right now that people love their jobs that call it that um and that's what the state is trying to do that that's what i have and i would love to hear from aniket and ryan you guys are quiet um forget it and i just want to say kind of following up on on uh i want to comment that i think one thing we're going to do with this budget more than we've done in previous budgets is really explain um what these numbers mean and where they're coming from um um and you know there's ways to do that we you know the the bridge and times our guests are um usually very friendly to publishing op-eds or editorials uh andrew and i can can work with libyan grant to put that together uh and get a good one out that really you know explains this in in language that people can understand uh but also i think it's important to um um you know use social media other things to explain it because uh it's it's complicated uh people don't understand why a small small budget increase it's really you know as grand was saying earlier this is by far the smallest budget increase since i've been on the board um uh can result in what looks like a very large tax increase uh so explain all those things is going to be uh very important uh and also explaining the importance of it i mean it's it's very true the people are hurting this is a difficult time uh but you know the reality is is that to get the numbers much lower um you start to you know erode into our ability i think to really provide a solid education uh and that you know in terms of building back from covid uh you know schools are our cornerstone in our community so keeping our school strong is very important so i think we have to get all those messages out and and also you know show show sensitivity to the fact that that this is is a difficult number for for many of our our constituents and community members um andrew thanks jim yeah that i was just writing as as the other board members were we're talking speaking to different issues i was just taking some notes and i just i just want to i just want to echo what you said there jim it's going to be really important for us to communicate this clearly and i want to empathize with amanda because even people who work really closely with these issues um find this uh find our property tax system in our education funding system to be um very complex and it's it's a known problem with our education funding structure um and i think there's a lot of different perspectives surrounding how to fund education in the state but one thing i think all parties can agree on is that the current system is overly complex and leads to the exact types of issues that you are flagging uh so we should try our very best to break this out and explain it clearly but even with all those parts broken out it's it's it's partially a problem an underlying problem with with the system itself is that it's extremely extremely complex um and it puts us in a difficult situation as as grant that graph you put together grant i thought was really uh helpful that showed even you know we had large the years that we had some of the largest budget increases we actually had some of the lowest tax rate increases so that disconnection is something that um is is is really difficult to piece together mea your point on roxbury i i i wholeheartedly agree with with that approach and just a little context i don't know if you're aware of this or not but i think it's helpful for the whole board to be aware of this i know those who were on the board last summer are aware of this but at our retreat last summer we talked about this exact problem and how we needed to take a more strategic approach but in light of the changing uh guidelines and and just situations surrounding the pandemic as well as everything going on around um social justice issues the sro position police and safety around our schools all of those issues really became front and center priorities uh for us and that is something that we have let kind of fall by the wayside this rox this roxbury issue and it really is i shouldn't say it's an issue it's really an opportunity because we do have this building that's an amazing shape uh and an amazing community there and you know grant's right we don't have economies of scale in that building which is why the cost is is so high there but it also presents other opportunities for programming that we've talked about in the past and we just we have not taken a strategic approach um or done much in the way of community visioning surround surrounding that issue to figure out how can we make better use of that school and um of that building and are the are these costs that we can better control in the long run by by getting better value out of them um the fund balance issue i just want to let everybody know and are the the second quarter finance report which should be in everybody's packet there is a breakout of how we're planning to use that fund balance over the next three four years and it's been a point of conversation since i've been on the board um and on the finance committee about how to use that and um right now i think i think we've put together a very strategic approach and i gotta give grant a lot of kudos for that so um we grant liby and i had a conversation earlier this week about what is the most amount of what is how much fund balance can we responsibly use this year considering uh future budget pressures as well as one-time expenses that we'd like to pay for out of that fund and so you can see that in the public can see that very clearly in in that report um and you know lastly i i just i just want to say you know i think i think the administration has put together a really really solid budget here uh we we spoke on monday liby grant and i about you know what the district needs and um you know what they've what they've put before us is is something that really provides for our students in our community and our community's needs and so so the goal was to figure out well how can we reduce this tax rate with without compromising those needs without compromising the quality of this really central institution um and central service for for kids for families and so i i do support this budget but i think we're gonna have to really explain to people why there's such a large tax increase considering the prudent approach that we've actually taken to budget who can we blame you made it jim i lost my hand i'm back on but using data so i um i i can only see the part okay i'm gonna do the participant list now um sorry about that but it's all i can see i need to see you or the participants list um do we have it doesn't look like we have any more hands raised just that there are no hand raised uh if you want me to help you with the hand raising jim i can help you but i there's nobody with their hand digital hand raised okay um i also think if please let me know if this is correct we don't have any members of the public on now do we no we do not okay um so i think our next uh our next order of business is to vote on the on the budget and the warning um do we feel ready for that yes do i have a motion to approve the budget and warning as presented i move to approve the budget and warning as presented uh do i have a second my second um any discussion no uh okay wait i i have a discussion okay i'm sorry i i just need to so like i for me it's really really important that we do some accessibility you know staff that like that how we inform the public um so is that part of this vote like or is that a separate thing like i i want to vote and i want to say that we need to make this accessible to our community so how do i do that where do i do that um i think i think you just make the comment i don't know if that's something we actually vote on i think that's just something we we've kind of committed as a board to do um in terms of you know working with the administration to put together talking points to get out our beds to put information on the website that explains the budget um i don't think we need to vote for that i think we should just have um kind of a consensus agreement that that's what we're we're going to work towards are we doing like a senior center i mean usually amanda there's there's certain engagements that happen so i don't know we'll have to discuss which engagements happen sometimes we do a separate one for roxbury sometimes tina helps do one for the senior center and uh i think most recently there was a town hall so maybe that's a separate thing we can talk about yeah and and we can also make that just an ongoing agenda item because we have you know two meetings between now and town meeting day so we can just discuss on the third and what is it the 20th of february where we're at with outreach and accessibility and just kind of make sure that we're we're following up on that and you know doing uh doing both uh things in terms of disseminating information uh with uh beds with website info with social media etc but then also i think it's important as jerry just mentioned to make sure we reach out to places like the senior center um and some other places that might be able to to get um to get a large zoom or other meeting uh where we could explain to various constituencies um you know what what this all about thanks jim i to add to that um and amanda based on what you were saying i feel like we should come next time with some action items in mind it seems like you have some action items in mind already amanda jim and i had talked about uh getting together and writing an op-ed that explains exactly what you said should be explained better and and clearer and um or just explain clearly i shouldn't say better or clearer but um and so i think at the next meeting it would be helpful if everybody considered you know what are some action items that that we could do as a board and we we need to be careful because we can't meet all of us together outside and we can't have a quorum but maybe we could break into pairs for example jim and i will work on an op-ed it might make sense at our next board meeting to think about breaking into pairs in terms of uh outreach and communication on issues in the past like what jerry was saying would have one person reach out to organization a and another person reach out to organization b yeah and and living ground i had to put more on your plate but if you could put together and i think you've done this to some extent already uh maybe distill some high-level talking points um about about the budget and what the numbers mean i don't think it has to be much just um you know some some bullets that kind of have top-line messaging on them and and also are supported with with some of the you know main numbers or what they mean can i suggest something just to help with that to to maybe well we can just send some questions that can then be explained like i like out of all the presentation i have like a lot of things i was like well what are the factors added up control and why and you know like what you know what is uh what does this mean for renters what does this mean for like i think it will be really helpful so like maybe i can i have a bunch of questions i can send like if you have others we can send the print and then that could be some of those uh answers from you then i'll send numbers yep no that would be great uh any other uh discussion points can you see the participants list anymore jim uh no i i can i i can call it up for a roll call but okay i i have my hand up and jill does yeah i'm just gonna offer that um when we're putting together anything that is like a material or an or a externally facing um asset i don't know document whatever that it um maybe we should have some of the newer board members get their eyes on it before it goes to the public because we are the ones who are probably closest to a member of the public than like andrew and jim who have done this a number of times and whose um language around it is a little bit more like um like for somebody who's done it a number of times whereas those of us who are brand new at it might be able to offer like a way of saying well this still doesn't feel super clear to me and therefore it might not still might not feel super clear so i just would offer that and and as a new member of the board i am offering my services to do that as you are drafting great great thank you mia and jill i'm just gonna follow up to um amanda's question that liby and grant i'm happy to help answer those questions if there are like q and a questions if that's helpful um and also i know that like the tax department agency of ed have created some of those sort of trying to get that you know big picture look for folks so rather than you guys spend a whole lot of time creating stuff from scratch if you want if if amanda if you want to send those cc me when you send those to those two i'm happy to try to help answer some of those just to take some of the the load off right and um if it's okay i don't want to create a board discussion um why don't you not cc me if you're going to cc jill and then liby can maybe just forward them to me so i'm aware of them but so we don't get a just in case we start asking questions and get into it maybe territory all right now i see another hands um i think we're ready for a vote uh uh etiquette hi amanda yes i think it's shifting i'll be jerry hi ryan hi andrew and i can you not hear me hi yeah i can hear you now jill hi ryan are you done oh sorry the the names are moving uh mia hi uh anyone who did not vote hi was that emma yeah okay sorry uh etiquette did i get you yes okay okay um i think i've got everyone uh all right excellent well uh we have a past fyi 22 budget and as has been noted by several people um i think we need obviously we needed a lot of work in the neck between now and town meeting data effectively communicate um what this budget means and uh um yeah what it what it means for schools what it means for our community congratulations everyone thank you again to grant and liby for all that yes yeah walking us thank you thank you that the things that people are gonna make right i just put it on my that's the face people for a high quality education that's the face they're gonna make high quality education well yeah we we've always had a very supportive community that has to understand that understood the values of our schools um and uh i think if i think if we let them know that that this is a very a very responsible whole of the line budget um and that you know the numbers are out of our control um hopefully folks will step up and um you know we'll we'll also explain to the extent we can how there's uh you know i think tina's right that this will be hard for some people but i also think that there is really for some people as well too and explaining that is important um on to the next uh thing which is a an update on the board safety committee uh and i just for purposes of both time and efficiency uh we are gonna have a much deeper dive on this uh i believe on the third uh and this is just meant for a quick quick update from emma and mia as well if she wants to chime in i know people have a lot of questions but if you could um hold your questions for the broader discussion uh that would be helpful in terms of moving through this agenda and again this is this is just meant to be a quick update but this will be a a major focus of i believe the next meeting so there will be plenty of time i think to have all the the hard questions that that we want answered answered um and i think i may be able to rejoin uh looks like my internet is back up but um while i do that emma why don't you go ahead and and start yeah so the plan was for me just to give you an update on where we're at and what our plan is for the february third board meeting so that you kind of have a heads up of what to expect and also have maybe some time if there are some specific questions or ideas that you would want the committee to bring to the table for the february third meeting then you would have time to sort of think about that and then get back to me via email um the committee the the last committee meeting is on tuesday january 26th the last meeting before our february third board meeting where we will be discussing the SRO position so if you if there's something that you feel like you really want to hear from the committee or a specific question that you want answered it'd be great for you to email that to me so that i have an idea of what you're looking for um so that when we prepare for the february third board meeting where we keep those things in mind um so i just want to say that it's really been an honor to serve on the committee and as the chair it's filled with thoughtful intelligent community minded members of of our community and i've been really impressed with the level of commitment that they've shown um to the committee we've been asking a lot of them we've had um 10 meetings which just in the meetings alone represent 21 hours of work and then we've been doing a lot of like breakout homework outside of the committee meetings so individual members have been putting in many many hours of their time on this topic and i've just i just want to express my appreciation for the dedication of all the committee members um i also want to just give a quick shout out and thanks to um susan kormick and keisha ram who helped us facilitate the first few meetings and uh retired chief of police tony fake ghost and the current chief of police brian pete and liby bone steel who came and did a nice presentation for all of us and um recently laura merchant and mary zintaro who are local parents and community members they put together they're also um uvm masters candidates and they're working on collecting sRO data and they provided a presentation to the committee last night um so our our plan and this was partially um developed with with the help of sue and keisha the first part of the committee charge is to make a recommendation to the board on how to proceed with the school resource officer position and sort of in in the course of our work we were realizing you know this may not end up being a binary sort of up and up or down recommendation from the whole committee and our plan for february third is to give you more of an overview of the work that we've done so far and some of the feedback that we've received we've done um like i said we've done a ton of work we did a pretty vast stakeholder survey that included um a variety of stakeholder groups and we got um over 450 responses to that survey and we've sort of collated it and themed it and uh synthesized it and then we've also we also did a q and a uh a q and a process where the committee came up with a whole bunch of questions around the sRO position and then we did breakout work and conducted many interviews dozens of interviews outside of the committee to answer a lot of the questions that we had around the sRO and that some of those questions were answered by liby or the police department or other schools um experts in the field organizations community member students um so we're going to present all of that work to you and sort of show you what our findings are and then boil it down to some common themes um and core values around public safety in our schools and then we do have a document that we're working on right now that's sort of the um the benefits of keeping the sRO position and the benefits of eliminating the sRO position and then sort of some other higher higher level um points that we want to make sure that the school board hears um so so that's our plan our plan is not to come to you and say do this or do that we understand that the committee is not a decision-making body and that the school board is ultimately um the body that will make a decision up or down on the sRO um so our plan is to just present you with everything that we've done so far and then give you um some of the things to keep in mind in terms of you know the benefits of your decision one way or the other so I wanted to sort of lay that out to you um and then if you have any questions now that you want me to quickly answer or if Mia has anything to add and then also between now and next Tuesday if there if something is rising to the surface for you like Emma I would really like the committee um to report on this specific question that I have around the sRO then we can make sure to incorporate that in our presentation up for February 3rd. Mia do you have anything to add so I see that Andrew has a question yeah um you want me just to call so I see um Andrew has his hand raised go ahead so do you and and we've spoken about this a couple of times um do you anticipate you're going to provide us with a bunch of information which is going to be really helpful I'm sure do you anticipate that you're going to identify action items for the board like this is a decision point or here's a decision point or action items for the administration like where um or just action items in general I'm just thinking yeah I think I think what you're asking is is basically revolves around the second part of our charge which is to sort of create some recommendations around the vision moving forward so it'll be interesting to see you know I think the committee will be eager to know are we are we recommending a system with an sRO or without an sRO and once we know what we're working with then we'll be able to better create action items for the second part of our charge is that does that answer your question so so this is really uh here we we feel like we've completed the first part of our charge here's where we are we still the second part of our charge and the first part is obviously going to be to keep the sRO or to not keep the sRO correct yeah that's how the charge was written it was sort of split into two parts so the first part is to sort of explore the the specific position of the sRO and then the board will make a decision on that and then the second part is to um look at a vision for justice and equity and in our schools as it relates to our diversity equity and inclusion policy and so that could be with an sRO or without an sRO but we're going to be examining that topic okay and then I imagine some recommended action items thank you that's helpful uh ryan you know and we were kind of getting to my question there at the end just trying to remember the process we laid out for the committee the committee is expecting to do more work after this February 3rd briefing with the board correct it's going to be fleshing out some of the themes that were deliberated and the committee is not dissolving after this February 3rd meeting right correct we've been we actually had an extension so we had originally um meant to finish the first part of our charge by the end of December and then we sort of discussed with with the board and with jim um and around the budget uh the budget question primarily like when does this need to be answered when does the board need to make a decision one way or the other and because it really wasn't um it didn't have to happen by the end of December we extended it and then we're going to be meeting at least through march on the second part of our charge okay so i see um amanda has her hand up just a quick reminder to my brain that the there's no a thorough on the next budget that we just voted on correct that's correct so if i mean hypothetically i think what we talked about is if the board decided to keep the SRO position then grant talked about using fund balance money to pay for that position or or similarly if or conversely if the board voted to not keep the SRO position then there may be um there may be things that we would want to put into the budget in the absence of you know in place of the SRO to fill some of the role roles or responsibilities that the SRO previously had filled and so there may be may need fund balance money to cover some of those expenses but that would be a decision that would come later after the budget process and would be that was my understanding anyway maybe jim can speak to that yeah that sounds right um anika yeah um first of all thanks for doing all this super related work on on the committee i appreciate all the hard work that that's going to for you guys and the community members and everybody who participated my question um i have a couple simple questions one is next meeting are we voting on uh up or down SRO um so the February 3rd meeting is that is that what the vote's going to be i think that's the plan as it stands right now and and if i heard you correctly there is not the community is not really coming out with a recommendation one way or the other committee is going to present their findings and then board's gonna all of us are going to decide which way we want to go so there's not going to be a recommendation one way or the other from the committee about the yes or no right correct um yeah we i guess what ended up happening was the facilitator's felt like it wasn't because we weren't actually voting on the SRO one way or the other we weren't we didn't feel like it was conducive to the work that we were doing at the first part of the charge or more importantly the second part of the charge for people to sort of declare a position one way or the other um as part of their committee work so i think you know the hope is that we provide you with enough information where you are able to make a decision as an individual board member and then there is a possibility that individual committee members may end up writing a position statement to the board um but that would be up to the individual committee members so the committee as a whole wouldn't be okay all right right i don't see any other um amanda you still have your hand raised i'm not sure you still have it's an old hand like me yeah email me between now and then i mean it'd be great to hear your thoughts if you have specific ideas of what you would want to see in the presentation or specific questions that you want answered it'd be great to have those before our next meeting on tuesday the 26th yeah i don't want to give a big thank you to emma she's been doing a ton of work on this um and uh i know it's you know it's a big job and she's she's pretty a lot of hours so so thank you emma for the great work and it really is like a team effort i mean the whole committee every member of that committee is putting in a lot of work it's awesome uh so next up we have a superintendent evaluation and i know the evaluation committee is not scheduled to meet till tomorrow um to just want to go into uh the executive session and talk a little about kind of what process and what we might want to get out of out of this um do we do we not have policy monitoring oh yeah no sorry thank you i i skipped over that we do have policy monitoring let's decide we want to do a superintendent evaluation since i brought it up um maybe they have not seen a a ton yet have they and jerry my role is just to get it to the committee so yeah and then we were going to meet jam and that's tomorrow to decide how to facilitate it with the rest of the board and to do that so i'm not sure that we meet now i'm not sure how effective that would be um it sounds like we might want kick it to the third even though the third is busy yeah let's ask the committee meet first and then we'll do it okay is everyone okay with that good okay excellent um yes and you are you're totally right me oh we do have uh policy monitoring next and do you have a question as well yeah i just i know you can't say what exactly we're going to see but can you give us an idea are we going to get like a summary of this was the superintendent this is the superintendent self-evaluation and then responses from the the others who filled out the evaluation i'm just curious uh we will be jerry why don't you answer that well at least see the form right yeah we will so that document i think i sent you a draft of it where um we basically liby does a self-evaluation and then we also look at each one of those categories and we add our comments to that as well so i would just say after the committee meets tomorrow we will probably send some kind of pre-read ahead for the meeting the next meeting when we go into executive session um and then we will at that time facilitate like a a comment session yeah it's like a it's a scored um this is a score document um so we'll be filling it out in that executive session on the third yeah yeah we'll be kind of as a group deciding on which comments should float to the top and which comments we should actually put into the document we actually the the committee will be taking all the feedback from the different board members and then we will kind of synthesize that into a cohesive document which then you will get back to the board they they will say yep that's sounds good and then we'll go from there yeah and then the yeah so we and then after that i'll meet with liby uh or jerry and i will be with liby and kind of go through our responses uh emma i just want to be mindful of that i think i heard february third meeting and i just want to be mindful of um packing that because i know that the SRO conversation is bound to take up a lot of time and there's i think there's probably going to be quite a bit of public comment so i just want you to keep that in mind when you're planning that agenda yeah i'll work out with liby we might be we might be able to do it the 20th um we don't want to kick it too far back we also don't have contract renewal this year so um liby let's discuss kind of when we get to crunch hour um but but that's a good comment emma and i was that was kind of thinking of that as well this is not a process we want to shortchange other um amanda so just we get to write afterwards i'm just like i'm just the process sorry you guys uh collect information tomorrow like in in your meeting tomorrow and then it comes back or did you guys already filled out now we'll we'll collect the superintendent evaluation committee we'll collect like liby will do her own evaluation we'll kind of look at it and we'll we'll think about it we'll do some suggestions then we'll come in executive session have the whole board give feedback i see then this the superintendent evaluation committee will rewrite that document with that feedback in mind then it'll come back to the board the uh superintendent evaluation committee will basically you know run that feedback by the board and say is this will be agreed on um and make any further changes based on that and then we'll finalize it the board will finalize it the board will sign off on it and then there'll be a meeting between usually the passage has been me and liby but uh it could be me jerry and liby where we'll sit down and we'll kind of go through and do uh do a one-on-one evaluation and and i'll describe what the board's feedback is and um you know kind of answer questions you might have about what the what the the written board's feedback was why we scored the way we did etc so jim i have one question um in terms of a pre-read do are we able to send so liby's already done her part are we are are are we able to send that ahead to everyone on the board securely because they'll want to read it before we go into executive session even though we're facilitating they'll still want to have a chance to read it i think we've done that in the past haven't we haven't you said like a password for the document liby we brought paper paper copies which i was really regretting this year because i had to retype every single thing because i didn't have a digital copy but now we have digital copies there are ways to send it securely i don't think we need to you know put it in the mail to everybody but it's just something we need to decide on because everyone will want to read that ahead of time yeah i know that's a that's a good point because we don't have i really wanted two things we could either have anna just mail out a hard copy to all the board members or we could do some sort of password protective thing whatever is easy yeah the only problem is if people make comments and write it on the paper that's going to create a a bit of a nightmare to get it back into the document so um maybe i can follow up with um anna or somebody on how to do that secure there are ways to send it securely i mean we can do it on the cloud drive it's already on the cloud drive right liby i mean well and don't act as it there don't we have uh open meeting a lot of problems with the google doc oh i don't i don't think we can i don't think we can edit a google doc okay okay yeah i don't i might be something different though because this is personnel that's true that's true i had to executive session jerry might want to reach out to susan holson at the vsba so she'll get she'll figure she'll find out for you okay can you send me that name um any other questions about superintendent evaluation great um so policy monitoring um this will open up to well open up to a motion to approve policy monitoring and then you know if you have any questions for liby we can we have the the d15 health insurance portability and accountability which is removed and then the d16 proficiency based graduation requirements and any any questions on those policy monitoring reports and we can move to approve them uh neah what what does removed me is it that we're not no longer going to have this policy good question mea i uh i went to so we have a calendar for when we monitor policies and the health insurance portability was up for this board meeting and so when i went to go um i just went to go look at it and there's a question i had inside of the policy monitor or the policy and so often i'll go to a different district to look at what they have and so i went to sx westford's website and they had removed on their website so then i went to the vsba model policy um website and it had removed that policy as well so he failed the policy committee to see if they they knew why and nobody really knew why but we're guessing it's because it's it's referencing HIPAA and that was my question so it's we're not a medical entity and so we don't we're not we don't fall under HIPAA but that's what the policy stated we were so our guess is is that we don't follow follow HIPAA and so the policy no longer is correct by law that would be my guess and ryan zajak and i would talk about it i think ryan that was your same guess as well yeah and so i think in general maybe the that policy has been over applied i mean so there are sounds like some schools who actually do provide health care so in those situations you know HIPAA would apply to a school which it normally doesn't in general it sounds like FERPA kind of trumps HIPAA so if something is an education record HIPAA doesn't really apply anyway um so i think in general we probably don't need this on the books since we're not necessarily providing health care but i am curious though with the the special needs unit that we're potentially going to be implementing at UES you know would some of those students would any of that classify as health care delivery health care needs no no wouldn't be it's still on any student need is qualifies under FERPA that's what we we follow and we have the adequate policy for FERPA um on the books so HIPAA is strictly on medical records and i i believe this health care portability was all about the adults not the kids yeah yeah so it's that's all that i've picked up since you wouldn't raise the flag that hey this has gotten pulled across the state what's going on um yeah so i would recommend that we follow the lead of the other districts and anna just update the website and say removed next to it well we would have to take forward action um to remove the policy it would be like modifying the policy i think so we would probably have to mumble it for us what we have to do is we'd have to have it as an action item on a board agenda to take it yeah make that decision to remove it we have to do a reading i think we could just put in a consent agenda as an action the action would be the consent so we can just remove it we don't have to like undo it like we would have to enact it like the three readings yes i don't think so another question for susan wilson uh yeah i mean i think that we should just make sure that we know like i don't like like oh other districts are doing and we should do it because other districts also do things we shouldn't be doing so uh yeah but if we don't have their confirmation so i think that you know the policy committee we were going to reach out to them so i'd like to just like be clear like why what is it removed and how like what's that is this is this doing so like say that let's have a confirmation that why things are removed before we move forward to put in a consent agenda so maybe i i you know we can talk to about that in the policy committee and like make sure that we have uh recommendation from bsba like why they're doing it sometimes they don't need that no yeah me up on our agenda for the 25th oh it is right okay great yeah i was just thinking it seems like and this is a good kind of learning process for me that it seems like this is the kind of thing that would come from the policy committee to say we'd we either need to update this policy or we don't need it anymore so if it's already on your agenda then great thank you policy committee yeah and that sounds like the right thing to do is to have policy committee figure it out so if we're doing that um is that a is that a stale handamanda or is that a new all right um any further discussion motion to approve the policy monitoring reports so move uh second a second just any discussion any further discussion yeah so just just to clarify what we're approving here is the report of d16 we're not approving well i think we're approving the report we're not necessarily reproving the the existence i think it's just i have a question that was the the monitoring report and then there's but part of that report is that this policy has been removed so we're gonna have the policy committee follow up to see whether we still need it or not okay does that make sense yeah i didn't see on d16 though there is a policy monitoring report yeah there's only 16 is for a report i think i didn't do a monitoring with the health care portability yeah i just want to make sure that in our minutes it reflects that we are approving the report of d16 because that's all we're approving yeah that's all we have yeah yeah so i don't know if we need to amend amend that or not just uh let's let's make the motion clear that we are just approving the d16 monitoring i i move that we approve the policy monitoring report for d16 proficiency-based graduation um a second second further discussion um advocate hi analysts did you have a so your hand job okay um andrew yeah yes hi amanda yes jerry hi how about hi nia hi ryan hi jill hi i think that's everyone um um motion to adjourn i'm sorry i can have one question like where can i find the monitoring report or i'll ask nevermind i'll ask ryan yes all the policies and stuff are on the website you the monitoring of when you're supposed to say like a calendar that's on the website too it's on the website okay okay anna anna needs us to need you all to get your picture taken okay where you go anywhere thanks a lot anna she i saw the snap pictures while you're talking but then she was like but then it will be like resting faces i didn't want to catch you off guard you need them taken now yeah why don't you do it just be great okay uh on the picture taken today so if it all right i'll count to three and then take a screenshot a couple maybe all right ready one two three one two three oh and a kit awesome thank you all that's perfect amanda you can blame the city they're the ones who requested it i'll blame the city for everything quick quick little funny story before we adjourn like usually have a professional photographer come in and take this picture um and about three or four years ago peter sterling decided to give michelle brawn bunny ears and one of like 50 shots the person took and somehow that is the one that ended up on the back of the city report oh my gosh that is so funny so jim a quick question uh there was a reference in the consent agenda to a resignation but i don't see anything in the packet on it so i'm not sure what it is the resignation of pier cotton the assistant principal at main street middle school and so you accepted it um i mean doesn't say what action was associated with it like the other stuff in the consent agenda so i just know i mean i don't know what you do with the resignation and you know um yeah david all of those kind of things resignations and new hires go into the consent agenda as fyi for the board is it the end of the school year or yeah it's effective at the end of the school year okay cool alrighty hey thanks a lot good thanks jim yep um chill there's a little hand in your screen is it there for a reason that looks okay i don't think so i've never seen it before it's like a funny little handsome okay um motion to adjourn i moved to adjourn um yeah do you want a second yes uh arrogant hi andrew hi amanda yes fairy hi amma hi mia hi ryan hi gel hi hi thanks everyone thank you thank you