 604 and just let everybody know that this meeting is being recorded. Okay. So first on our agenda, we have adjustments to the agenda. And I would like to suggest that we add the presentation to write after public comment. So that would be the third item essentially on the agenda. Any other adjustments needed? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move forward. Next we have a signed times or timekeeper. We haven't been doing this the last few meetings. Does anyone have a particular desire to do that? Great. And then that brings us to public comment. So please feel free. I'm struggling to see everybody right now. But if you want to share, feel free to jump in. Okay. Private caller. Great. I'll just see the one private caller, which I believe to be Orca. Okay. Great. I was curious. Yeah. And they had other things going on so they weren't going to do much. They're just doing an audio recording. Thank you. Okay. And so that brings us to our presentation from Encore Energy, Jessica Redmond. I can't hear you for some reason. Oh no. For the record, it's a really bad day for Google Meets. I've experienced that a few times today myself. I'm sorry. So 9359 is me. This is Andrew, by the way. Okay. Welcome, Andrew. We're waiting for a presentation from an energy presentation and oh and it's now loading. So okay. Okay. All right. And do you see my screen? Unfortunately, it's not going to. I do see it. It present mode. Okay. It looks like someone may have it open. Oh, there we go. Okay. All right. Your time. So I will try to be as consistent. So name is Jessica Redmond. And I am an educational consultant to Encore Renewable Energy. They are or we are a solar developer, a commercial scale solar developer based out of Burlington, Vermont. We've done over 70 projects in the state of Vermont over the past 13 years. And I am specifically working with school districts like yours to make sure that you take advantage of a solar net metering opportunity because the rules are changing over the next couple of years. And so I'm working really hard to connect school districts to Encore so that we'll have this value brought into their community. My goal for this is to show that this is going to connect to your strategic plan in the form of cost savings. I'm going to talk specifically how it will could be applied to the Bethel campus in the district and to also show how if all of the districts in the supervisor reunion do this, how what that would look like. So right now, two schools in the supervisor reunion already net meter. One of them is the noon school in the Strafford district and the White River Valley High School in Royalton, South Royalton. And so for your district, you're already saving over $5,000 a year for that Royalton campus because you've been doing the solar net metering for about seven years. Between the two schools for the entire supervisor reunion, you're saving almost $7,000 a year. So again, like I said, I want to present to you how the other school in the district, how that plays into for the whole supervisor union. So since you already have a school in your district that already net meters, you're probably or many folks on this call are probably already aware of how net metering works. But the thing is, is that you're not really purchasing anything. You're signing on to an agreement to get credit full value credit for the energy that your portion of a project produces. And so you get credited for that monetized value on your GMP bill. How this work, how you get the savings is that you only actually pay 90% of that value and therefore realizing a 10% savings. And how we're able to give you that savings is largely due to the tax incentives and the various rules around solar net metering that allow us to pass savings to you based upon the way that we get tax breaks and can do some fancy financing. The great thing about solar net metering is whoops, whoops, sorry. The great thing about solar net metering is that you do not need to build a system on your campus. And likely would you not want to, because then that would require you to maintain it and to have upkeep. But when you buy into an offsite solar project, you have no upfront costs whatsoever. You see the savings from the moment it goes active and you have no maintenance. So your crews, your grounds crews don't have to worry about mowing around it or taking care of it. And you can say to your student body, your parents who may be pushing for you to do more renewable that this counts, that this counts to you being more green. On our end, we find the site to build and we do have a specialty in building on retired gravel pits and landfills and brown fields and unusable space. We do all of the impact studies. We work with GMP to do all of the interconnection to the grid. We get the certificate of public good and we acquire the financing and the subcontractors and electricians to build the site. The youth, the district do not need to do any of that. So to get right down to the nitty gritty, so the school on the in Bethel between December of 2018, November 2019 spent over $46,000. Actually, the bill was higher than that, but because of fees and adjustments and charges, this $46,000 represents the monetized value of the electricity that you actually used. And that's how net metering works is that it's not about how much electricity you use. It's what its dollar value was. And because we anticipate fluctuations from year to year, our best practices are that we take 85% of that and it's this 39 in change, 39,500 that you would apply that you would apply to the net metering agreement. And that just to sort of give you a sense that amounts to about 140 kilowatts of an entire project. All right. Wait a minute. Okay. All right. So what savings would you see by entering into an agreement with us is that you'd see almost $4,000 a year for that one location, that one meter, because that would be the only that's the only meter that you still have available that can be net metered. So about almost $4,000 a year or a little over $325 a month. If all of the other schools within the supervisory union who are not net metering do sign on, they could be seeing about $11,000 and additionally to a total for a total of about $15,000 a year in terms of saving on your electricity bill, again, without having to build a system or have any maintenance or upkeep. If we combine that with your other two net metering agreements that you have, the district could be saving $22,000 a year for the next couple of decades just by going solar. Okay. And then it is a 25 year agreement, same as the Newton and the Royalton agreement. And for the Bethel meter over 25 years, it's a projected savings of a little over $118,000. And for if all the all of the other schools sign on in the district, it could be over formed to $50,000 of savings over the next 25 years. Like I said, it is a 25 year agreement that is fairly standard in this industry. And it's that long because of the way the financing and the tax incentive work in order for us to make money. And yet still at the same time give you a decent enough and an impactful discount. It does need to be a relatively long. But since you're a school, we're hoping that you won't go out of business like a restaurant. And since you are in Green Mountain Power, you will see these credits on your Green Mountain Power bill. And in fact, it was when Tara sent me the bills for the South Royalton campus, I immediately saw that you were reading that metering there. And it's like thousands of thousands of dollars of credits go on that GMP bill and they they are spread out their use over the course of the year. And then when the winter months come by, when the array the project isn't producing as much, those credits get applied. And as the way the net meeting agreement works is that as soon as the contracts are signed and the project is built, you start seeing those savings right away. You don't there's no payback period to any of this. And so that's basically it. I just want to be able to show you what value it could be for this district and for the entire supervised union. For the past month or so, I've been meeting with the other boards. And what I've been doing is I've been sending them what's called a terms sheet, which highlights and summarizes basically what I just gave to you and then give some more information as well that's specific to this board. And I have already sent a net meeting agreement template to Tara and for the lawyers and for the folks who want to read it to at least begin to review. And that process of sort of negotiating back and forth and changing some language can even begin if people are interested in the next month or so to get going on this. And as I said to you earlier, Lisa, and I'm going to go ahead and stop and let my face be seen, that I am not a pressure tactic person at all. I myself am an educator and I think people understanding this is I want people to feel like they've been well informed and that they know exactly what this is about. Because it is a long term agreement, but it's something that I believe in that is good for our community. It could be good for yours. But I want you to think about it and I want you to talk about it and make sure that you understand it and ask questions and let you decide. Yeah, I'm not interested in pressuring. I do want to let you know that we do have several projects in works. I have it confirmed that we anticipating would likely could begin building this fall. That these could be projects that this group could be a part of. And we have several slated for next spring as well. Okay, so going back and forth talking answer that, you know, that takes some time. It may take some couple weeks or a month or so. However long, but I want you folks to feel good about it and for you to believe that it's going to add value to for your community. Thank you. I'm wondering if board members have questions about this presentation. If I'm not, yeah, go for me. Okay, I just wondering why does the school need to be involved? I mean, it's if it's not on a school property or anything, do you need a market for the electricity to be able to do net metering? Is that that? I mean, why involve the school at all? Your company to do it. I'm sorry. So, Rodney's question, I'm not sure if you can still hear me just was just why and why your school? Okay. Yeah. Why would you involve any school? I mean, what's the reason for involving the school? Does I mean, does the why would the property owner get the credit or somebody else get the credit? Why is it that you bring the school on board for it? So, because the school is the energy user. So, the property owner does receive compensation that basically the land is leased to the property owner, but the energy. So in order, the way that net metering works is that if we build a big project, we need to have what are called off takers. So sometimes we make arrangements directly with GMP where he says, we want you to develop this and we're going to sell that energy to our home owners. But some of our projects and many of our projects are ones in which we build where we specifically have customers who are going to be the recipients of those credits directly. So when we so those types of clients will be towns and municipalities, hospitals, colleges and school systems because they are very good energy electricity users. And so, so if we want, if we build a 1000 kilowatt array and a hospital said, yeah, we use that electricity every year, then they can be the recipients of all of those credits, as opposed to us being like a son common who exists in one household at a time. So, where we go towards the big heavy electricity users because we want to ensure that the electricity is active and applied for credit. Did that make sense, Rodney, or do I need to clarify? Yeah, yeah, you need a large customer to use the election. I think I've got my mic working now. Can I go next? Are you done, Rodney? All right, yeah. So, if we agree to do this, how long would it take to build? Believe it or not. So the actual build doesn't take very long, maybe a month or so. It's all of the work leading up to it. So getting the certificate of public good, getting all the permits, that takes one to two years. So the projects that I was mentioning that will likely be built this fall are projects in which we either are very close to getting the permits or we will have the permits at any time, or we do have them. So, but the actual build themselves is not, it's not a lengthy construction process. But you're basically saying that this proposal could take two years before we're actually benefiting from it? No, I'm hoping that you will be able to sign on to some of these projects that are going to be built this fall or in the next brand. Sometimes we do engage, like we do work, like I said, with those large municipalities or the big hospitals. Sometimes those are multi-year projects, but that's because that array may be dedicated solely for them. Okay. I actually have another question. On a solar field big enough to power our school, how much land would that take? That's a great question, Rodney. I don't know the answer to that. I can certainly find out and send the answer to Tara by the end of the week. Andrew, did you have a question? So my one question would be just so that I'm clear, when we sign up for this, we're basically just committing to buy power from you at 90% of the market rate. We're not committing to any specific rate. That's going to be a fixed rate over the life of the contract, right? That's right. Yeah, it's a percentage, right? Because as we know, the price of the energy does fluctuate. And so what this agreement, with one exception, what this agreement guarantees is that you're paying 90%. Okay, thanks. And I just want to clarify, so we pay no upfront cost. Okay. And we don't pay anything to build and we just start saving money and we have a greener school. Okay. Exactly. And I've got one more question. Tara sent you information on the amount of electricity that was used for a given year. When we pay, are we paying based on actual usage? Are we committing to a value that was determined based on a full year of consumption? It is based on the value. It's not the actual usage. So if we got involved in other energy programs and we were using less electricity, we'd still be committed to paying based on what happened from the numbers you were looking at from last year. Correct. So if you're doing an energy audit, right? If you're doing an energy audit right now and someone's got, you know, you've contracted someone to do that, we would definitely, we would have to factor that in because we want you to get as much of those net meter and credits as you can. If you wind up spending less money than what the contract is worth, you've lost that savings. So we would want you, we don't want, we want you to get 100% of the savings that you could get. So if you're going to change all the light bulbs out in your school or, you know, get a different boiler that uses less energy, we definitely would want to know that so I can adjust those numbers for you. Okay. Okay. Any other questions while we still have Jessica here with us? Okay. I think that's it. Thank you so much. Thank you, folks. Have a nice evening. You too. Bye, Lisa. Bye-bye. Okay. So that brings us to our minutes from April 28th and May 19th to our previously shared with us. Does anyone want to make a motion to approve those minutes or? I make a motion to approve the minutes. I will second that. All right. Is there any discussion of those minutes? Is everyone had an opportunity to review them? Okay. All in favor of approving the minutes for the dates of April 28th, 2020 and May 19th, 2020, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? I think I heard everybody's voice individually. Any abstentions? Okay. And the minutes are approved. All right. Thank you. That brings us to our next item, which is board comment. And I'm wondering if anyone has something that I'd like to share. Any board members? I guess I'll, I guess just to follow up on that presentation that we just had, I think Lisa's question was a good one about the, you know, what happens if we reduce our electric usage. So, you know, I think that would definitely be something to think about because it is a 25-year agreement. And, you know, I think, you know, we would have to look at it and determine, you know, if we think it's hard to project, but, you know, if we think we're going to keep using the same amount of power for the next 25 years or, you know, do we hope that it's going to go down? I know that we had the plans for the boiler work. I'm not sure what impact that would have on our electric usage, but, you know, we would hope that maybe it would go down, but I don't know if, you know, when that project, if it will happen or when it will happen. But, and I know that also the school had a study a couple years ago or a year ago from Efficiency Vermont or from another group maybe on, with some opinions on the lighting and some recommendations to basically not even replace the lights, but just like D-Lamp, some of them where you just remove some of the bulbs from the fixtures because some of the spaces are just over lit. And so you're paying money for that lighting and it's more than what you need. So, you know, if any of those projects happen and they go forward, if we do anything to reduce energy usage, you know, we're still sort of on the hook for that additional money. But then the question is, you know, is it going to save us more than 10% of what we're currently paying? So I think that's what we have to figure out somehow. Yeah, I thought that was a great question. I wasn't thinking along those lines at all. So I appreciate that. Yeah, that was a great question. That's always the catch 22, because 10% is great. But we were, you know, thinking about the boiler, thinking about all these other things. We've got to be careful that whatever they're making their basis on is from a place where we feel like we've done the most that we can. And if that means waiting another year, that might be better. 10%, I mean, $3,000, $4,000, that's not a whole lot of money to be saving. And if we do some improvements in the meantime, after we've locked in on a contract, we could be paying more money than we would have otherwise in energy costs that we don't even have. Right. Thank you. I just, yeah, go for Andrew. There, you know, we would have some options in that case, like if you took some of the money that we'd be saving on electricity, otherwise in the best in some, like heat pump heating or something like that to reduce our fuel oil bill, that will be a way that we could increase our electricity use, but in a responsible way, if we managed to, you know, decrease it to the point where we weren't paying that amount of money. So anyway, just wanted to comment that there are options for, you know, if we did get in a good situation of not using all of the credits that we were investing in. Okay. So where do we go from here with this energy presentation? Is there, do we need to ask somebody within the administration or Supervisor Union to give us an update on what needs to be done, what's going to be done or what has been done since the year of electrical usage that Tara fed our presenter? I think you as a board have to decide whether you want in. And that's, you know, that's where we need to go. I mean, I think that's the point of this is, you know, you guys need to vote if you want to get in and do it now, as opposed to later, I guess. But don't we hear because you're half in now with this building, we need more information though. Yeah, well, that's another point you can ask for more information. Yeah. Yeah, because I think what she shared about, you know, the documents need to go to Dina and there are a few more process pieces. I mean, it does appeal to me to have our buildings be more energy efficient. But I also think that, you know, we did an energy audit before, I mean, not so long ago. And so I'm curious about the upgrades that have happened since then. I know that there was some work with light bulbs a few years ago. So I think I just have more questions at this point in time then then make me feel comfortable making a 25 year decision. Can we ask for maybe a report from that that building as to what has been done in the last few years and what is left to be done based on the energy audit and go from there? I think we can. Owen raised his hand though. So perhaps there's additional information. Owen. Hi, good evening, everybody. And if you look at under discussion items 8.5, I believe Jamie wants to talk about a facilities committee. Okay. That might lead into this and give that group some immediate work, but I'm not going to speak for him. Okay. Because we've got three meetings happening in an hour and a half. And he was in Sharon with us here. Okay. Right. We understand you're all straddling a few different meetings. So I appreciate that. Anything else from the board? I just wanted to take a moment to recognize the good work that's been done wrapping up the school year on behalf of all of our, you know, or extend that my gratitude to our teachers, our administrators. I've seen parades with happy kids lining the street of teachers, videos of eighth grade graduations that are just beautiful and our high school graduation and the video honoring students. And I know, you know, those efforts take hours of work that people put in that go unseen. So I wanted to offer sincere thanks for that. And then also, I think this is likely our last board meeting with David and Bruce. And I just wanted to thank both of you for your work with us over the past few years. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. And it was exciting to be part of the first two years of White River Valley School. Thank you. So that leads us now to our superintendent's report. We said, if you don't mind, I'd like to do the policies and get on to the next meeting. I really don't have a whole lot else. A lot of Jamie's been doing a lot of the work in some of the other areas. So if I could, we are going to pull back four of the policies. Dina's not comfortable that the shape that they're in, even though the policy committee sent them forward. And they are B35, which is social media, C25, which is non resident tuition students, C29 policies for tuitioning. And that really doesn't involve you anyway. And also D as in dog 22, which is therapy dogs. I wish that could go through because we've had it back to the committee several times, but Dina's not comfortable with it. So the others, there are 11 others. And I'd like to go down through them and show you. Some of them have a little bit of red ink, but for the most part, Dina left them intact as the policy committee passed them. And yours is the last board to look at them and decide if they're good for you to go. The first one is B30, which is up in front of you, which is staffing and job descriptions. As you can see, there's no red ink on this one. And Dina was good with it. It passed the policy committee. The next one is B32, which is personnel files. And this came through unscathed. It has no red ink on it. And Dina was happy with it as it was written and approved by the policy committee. The next one is E33, which is resignations. And again, this one's really untouched after the policy committee passed it. Dina left it alone and was happy with the language. The next one is C32, which is 18-year-old students. There's a couple little changes, but nothing substantial that would alter the meaning of what it is. You can see the red. Can you scroll up a little bit with that, Ray? So they can see the bottom. And there's a little bit of a crossout and then a capitalization at the last sentence. But it's pretty good to go. Next thing is Field Crypt. Okay, we got that one. That's D32. And that was unchanged as well. The next one is D32, selection of instructional materials. I don't think there's been any changes on that as well. Hopefully you've all had a chance to look at these ahead of time, send them out. Any representative on the committee at least though, so she might add comments if you have questions. The next one is E as an Edward 32 visits by parents, community members or the media. There are a couple changes that Dina suggested. It took a sentence out under one parental visit and also just from language at the bottom, which is FERPA related. And there's a section that's been taken out, but I don't think this change is really any of the real meaning of the policy. So we're suggesting that that one go forward with these changes. Next one is capitalization of assets, which is F23. And again, that doesn't have any red ink on it. It's come through fine. The only question there was is about the $5,000 value, and that seems to be appropriate. At the time that we looked at it. The next thing is conflict of interest, which is F24. And the biggie in this policy was the zero value under the third paragraph that Ray has highlighted. He felt pretty strongly that that needed to be a zero so that there wasn't anything as far as trading favors and money and gifts. So we left it at zero and everybody on the committee seemed to be happy with that. The next one is F as in Frank 27 bids, quotations and procurement. And as you can see, that hasn't been changed at all. And the final one is F31, emergency closing. There were a couple of little things there, capitalization, and a couple of strike-throughs at the beginning. And that's it. If you are comfortable with those 11 policies, I would hope that you would entertain a motion to approve them. They have been warned in the paper and this is the final act. So thanks. Thank you. I'm wondering if you could offer a little additional clarity about the ones that were kicked back. Maybe this should be saved until the end. I think I can tell you that they just, Dina didn't throw them completely. One of them, she didn't feel we needed it at all, but it doesn't apply to you because it had to do with tuition in-house students. The others just need a little work. She wanted to, and there was so much red ink on them that I didn't dare bring them forward. I'd like to do that, you know, the therapy dogs and the social media policy especially. And Jamie is aware of these and he will have to just bring them forward in the fall. Okay. So other questions about these policies, anyone have comments or notes that they made when they read through them or questions for us to discuss? I wonder if any of you understand how labor intensive this has been. Thank you. Thank you, Tammy, for putting the link in the minutes. I appreciate that. The link is in the agenda too, if anybody needs a refresher. Okay. So without hearing any questions or comments, I'm wondering if we're at a place where we want to act on these. You want me to read off the numbers? Sure, I've got some. Okay. So B-30, B-32, B-33, C-30, C-32, D-32, E-32, F-23, F-24, F-27, and F-31. Would be accepted as written or with revisions because they were. With the minor corrections that were in some of them. Okay. So to entertain a motion to approve these policies. I would make a motion to accept these policies as presented to us on the given. With the minor corrections that were presented. With the minor corrections that are presented to us. Perfect. Any second? All in favor of passing the 11 policies that Bruce listed with minor corrections. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any post? Any abstentions? Okay, great. Thank you board members. Can I also just ask you, Tara's got to follow me into this next meeting. So if you've got business with her, maybe you can get to it so that you can go to the next one. I'm sorry to mess with your agenda like that but. Okay. So then I'm wondering, I mean the business manager's report is next on the agenda. So if we could go right into that. All right. See you. See everybody. Bye-bye. Thank you guys very much. The only thing I had on the agenda tonight was actually I believe under your action items and that is I just need your approval for your FY 2021 tax anticipation note. Okay. So this is the note that we only take out money out of if the actual revenue that comes in from the towns is less than we anticipate so that we can continue to pay our bills. Correct? Yes. This is your treasure has the discretion to pull this money down as needed until your tax revenue comes in from the towns and until your education spending revenue comes in and there are three payments a year. So you and in Rudd's district you collect taxes August, November, February and May and then one time a year November for Royalton and then the state's funds come in typically September, December and April. So the treasurer can pull these funds down. Usually they are pulled down in July and they pull down what they need to cover your expenditures up until that tax revenue comes in. You pay the the bid that we received from Community National Bank which is our current provider for this the current fiscal year and for the last several fiscal years. The cost to borrow is 1.54% and the interest earned is 1.84%. So you pay interest on what you borrow and you earn interest on what you don't. Okay. Any other questions about this just feel free to We did get two different scenarios. We got the tax anticipation note in a line of credit but the tax anticipation note you would be able to make more interest than you would in the line of credit. So my recommendation is to go with the tax anticipation note. Great. Does anyone have a question about this? Would anyone like to make a motion? You are working to make up your deficit in the current fiscal year and you have two years to retire a deficit once a completed audit is done. So if you do not make up your deficit in the next two fiscal years then you would need to put that into your budget for FY22. Can I answer your question Bob? Yeah I was just wondering is the money being rolled over are we using the tax anticipation note ever the deficit? No use your tax anticipation note to pay your expenditures not to make up a deficit. The deficit will remain on the books and Bob I'm going to give you an update on finances here in a little bit and talk to you a bit about my thoughts around that too. Okay. All right. So any other questions about this tax anticipation note will we still have Tara with us? Okay. Would anyone like to make a motion related to this? So I'll make a motion. We move forward with the tax anticipation note from the community bank for the coming school year. I think that Tara put some language in the in the comments that you can use. That's for the next part Lisa. Okay. Sorry. It's that you accept the proposal from Community National Bank for the FY2021 tax anticipation note. Okay. Would anyone like to second that motion? I'll second that. Okay. Any discussion? All right. All in favor of passing the the tax anticipation note from Community National Bank. Please say aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? No. Any abstentions? All right. Thank you. And Tara you have another Yes. So the second part of this request Lisa and Lisa you both may recall from last year. I would like to ask you to put forth a motion to allow the signing of the non arbitrage and use of proceeds the certificate the arbitrage certificate and then the resolution in the note by the board chair the board clerk and the treasurer upon completion from the bank. So then I don't have to have you do another board meeting in order to just sign those documents. You can give your authorization as a board to those three individuals to move forward and sign them upon completion. So that's related to this particular note if we have to draw funds down. Right. Right. These are all the loan documents that go yeah. These are all the loan documents that go with this tax anticipation note. Okay. That's what I was remembering. But the board we wouldn't sign as a whole board. Right. So but the board does have to appoint someone who does sign. Right. And it's requires the signatures of the board chair the board clerk and the treasurer. Okay. So I'll make a motion that we approve the board chair the board clerk and the treasurer to sign the non arbitrage and use of proceeds certificate arbitrage certificate and the resolution in note. Second. Is there and is there a second. I seconded Andrew. Okay. Thank you Andrew. All right. So all in favor of allowing the board chair board clerk and treasurer to sign the non arbitrage and use of proceeds certificate arbitrage certificate and resolution no community community bank please say hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Any so no one's opposed. I got everybody clearly individually that time. All right. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you all very much. All right. So that brings us to our principles report. I don't know which one of you wants to share. It came you know it comes in the agenda. So anything you'd like to tell us about at our meeting. Lisa they might be I'm trying to start to teach them that they're going to say you have my report in hand and we'll entertain any questions that you have. Okay. That might be why they're being silent. I don't know but I'll jump in. It's okay. I did read the report. I appreciate that. Does anybody have any questions about the principles report or any comments? I had a question that goes back to the previous meeting. I think Reed was going to get answers on I think I think we're waiting on students to decide and then what was what happened with the the money that they had fundraised that we talked about last time. Oh the senior class. Yeah. The students decided to buy six Adirondack chairs for the school courtyard that would also put a plaque up in the courtyard acknowledging their donation and the remainder of the money was set aside in the student activities account to pay for them to hold a reunion next spring or whenever this pandemic eases up and allows them to get back together. So yeah a nice outcome with that. Any other principles report questions? We should add that since the report was written the names of the two new hires are our public. Okay. The new coordinator of student services is you can correct me if I get this wrong is Ashley Grote, A-S-H-L-E-Y-G-R-O-T-E and she comes from Brookhaven where she's managing some of their staff and providing support to students. So we're bringing in someone with a master's degree and a good number of years of experience and related works that we're really excited to have her join the team. I believe she'll be joining us end of July early August when she's fulfilled her commitments at Brookhaven. She's actually going to join us next week and go to best with us. Nice. And his best virtual this year also. It's more screen time for all of us that love it. Okay. And then the MTSS-A coordinator position which is a reallocation of existing staff was filled with Mindy Beth Pike who is currently full-time on the Bethel campus and now she'll add responsibilities with a lot of work she was doing on the Bethel campus already but more explicitly will have responsibilities looking at academic data and academic support and interventions for students across both campuses and all four programs. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. That's exciting. Any other information? Jamie, can I ask a question? Sure. Has that person already been hired? Mindy Beth Pike was already under contract with us. We're just going to be changing her job title and responsibilities. I don't think there's any change in financial obligation for us there. It's a reassignment. She already had to issue a letter of intent. She was under contract with you already. Do you have a follow-up question, Bob? No, that's okay. Okay. This isn't major news but we also received a resignation today. I don't know, Andrew, if you want to talk about that or I can... Or, David, it's Autumn Landlois who has been, I believe, a longtime paraeducator on the Royalton campus, mostly supporting a kindergarten classroom. That's right. Autumn called me today to say that she had found another position in a different field. I was excited about that but regret leaving South Royalton. She's worked at South Royalton. I think this has been her main career from an internship as a high schooler until now. Yeah, I'm used to seeing her friendly face there. It's too bad but I'm excited for her to pursue something new. And we talked about that earlier this morning and the principals believe we can cover her responsibilities with existing staff so we don't intend to have a new hire there. Okay. All right. Wasn't there another position that we got emailed about or did that go out to the whole school? The math introduction? Well, there's a foreign language position. I'm going to address those positions here shortly. That one was in the last principals report so I didn't include it here. Okay. We knew about that a month ago. I think in the past we have, as a board, heard the recommendations and then I think we approved them. I'm just curious with some new hires coming toward to us. If that was a step that we haven't needed to take in the past or... It actually broke. I don't know how you guys do it. I've sat in different meetings across your SU and it seems like each board has their hiring processes a little different. My experience would be that we would introduce Ashley Grote and you guys would make an emotion and approve Ashley Grote for the coordinator or student support position. Yes. With a salary that's with it, you know, based on the master agreement with an additional 15 days. Yep. Yeah, that's what we typically do at WRUD. What's that? That's the process we're going to adopt across the SU. Okay. All right. Is that for all teaching positions? Yeah. Okay. Sure. Yeah, because sometimes we've had as many as like six or seven at one meeting, which is a lot. It's a lot of new people. So the only position we would need you to take action on is the students of the coordinator or student support position by Ashley Grote. Right. I just wanted to make sure that we did the things we needed to in order to hire her. So I think I need to hear a motion if people feel satisfied that we should hire her, or we should ask some more questions if we want more clarification about the rationale. Okay. So I would entertain that motion if people feel ready. So I'll make a motion that we accept the recommendation on the hire for the, or for the, was it coordinator or student support? This is the position that was presented to you and you guys asked us to move forward with when we went from four principals down to four. Yeah. I'll second the motion. Any discussion of hiring Ashley Grote as our coordinator of student support? Okay. All in favor of this hire, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. You're not opposed or you are opposed? I'm opposed. Okay. All right. And the ayes have it. That's five and one opposed. Okay. Thank you. And I'll add, you know, I'm coming on here in two weeks. The process that we'll use moving forward would be that you'll get a resume in your board packet for new hires and the position will be listed on the agenda. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions after reviewing the principal's report? Okay. Thank you all for that report. Under discussion items, we have the FY 21 tax anticipation note, which we've already taken care of. And then we have 8.2 COVID-19 task force update. So thank you. Yeah, this is me. So the COVID-19 task force has been meeting weekly. Some committees have been meeting more than once a week. Please still let you know you have three students on the committees as well as faculty and Owen represents the admin team from Rudd. You're going to continue to receive bi-weekly letters from me. A letter will come out Friday. It's going to address all the committee members who the facilitators of each committee are and provide the facilitators' emails so that folks can email directly if they have questions or want to learn more information from each committee. We're also working to set up a question link on our WRVSU website so folks can ask the superintendent questions throughout the summer. I will then address every one of those questions and bi-weekly updates. I think any question that one person may have probably a lot of others do across the SU, so I'll address them that way. And I address some questions that have already come up in my bi-weekly letter this week in regards to transportation. I have a meeting with Butler tomorrow with Tara to discuss procedures based on recommendations we currently have and what that might look like. I don't know if you know but Secretary Yvette did come out last week and say that we're moving forward with in-person instruction for the fall. What he has not done yet is released written guidance. And so in the past what we've learned from Secretary French's office is that you don't move forward based on necessarily what was said in a press conference. You wait until the written guidance comes out because it has changed previously once other folks have vetted it. So the task force is awaiting that. That's really where they're at so they can start to move forward with some more planning. My plan would be that we will release these recommendations at the WRVSU level no later than the end of July so that you know buildings have already started planning about what does the first six weeks look like for in-person instruction but we still have all the logistics that we need to implement and so that would come in August. As I said in my update meeting with the board the SU board last Thursday there is a waiver to see whether or not we can get 170 student days versus 175 next year for more planning in August. If that's not approved by the secretary I have reached out to the White River Valley Education Association to see whether or not we can move some in-service time and whether they would agree to provide some the counter to adjust. We have more in-service time in August and not later in the school year for planning purposes. So that's something that where you've got in the works if the secretary doesn't waive some student days. And so we're moving forward. I discussed there's been rumors out there that we weren't going to continue to feed students. We of course are going to have lunch programs next year. Those will continue to be in place. So I try to adjust some rumors. Some folks said that we had already ruled out transportation. I said in the letter that's not the case. And so I'm just trying to answer some things that are kind of just taking on a life of their own throughout the community and throughout the SU. So and I'll continue to do that every two weeks. So that's the COVID-19 updates. I don't know if there's any questions about that or is there any clarity any more clarity this week around funding or support monetary support from the state? Yeah, it wasn't great news. That wasn't going to be part of my financial outlook. We're not able to access any CARES money or COVID offsetting money for this current fiscal year. So there's no revenue stream. They're saying that they're going to link it all into 2021. And they've said that they may use it to offset revenues shortage in the ed fund. So it's a big you know concerning for me in regards to I don't know how much of that money is going to actually ever trickle back down locally here to the SU. I'm hopeful that some CARES money will. But right now I don't think we can bank on it. Okay. Thank you. One, I think that the process you're using for the task force sounds good. You know, I think the communication sounds like it'll be good. One thing I just wanted to put out there was I'm very concerned about if we're going to have an uptick of people homeschooling in the fall, what that's going to do to our student numbers and therefore our tax rates and things like that. So you know, when we're talking about hybrid models or whatever, I wonder if there's some way to accommodate people who want their students to be home and you know, still have in-person classes for those who don't. I know that's probably a big headache. But I think as an SU it would be nearsighted not to think about that question and to ensure that we possibly provide virtual learning that still allows a student to be registered and count as ADM. So yeah, that's been on my mind and that's part of the planning I asked the task force to look at. Good. Thank you. I agree. I already know of some students who have parents battling cancer, etc. And like they don't want their kids to come back to school and potentially bring something home. So it's like a heartbreaking choice. But thank you for being thoughtful about that. Next, our financial outlook. All right. This is me as well. You know, I wish I came in here with better information for you guys, more positive news tonight. I'm sorry. I'm just not. And so I've been working hard in the finance and operations department over the last six weeks. And as you know, you know, we're expecting deficit protection once we receive the final audit of somewhere in the $440,410 range, somewhere in that regard for fiscal. I'm expecting that, you know, this is a conservative projection by terror, but you know, her projections have been accurate based on anything that I've been receiving from her. So she's projecting a potential small deficit this year. Part of what hurt us with that. Just so you know, COVID, we lost some revenue streams when we stopped instruction. We started to lose out on some revenue stream money around that. And we're working really hard to ensure across the SU that we get all of a reimbursement that we can around special education. But there's some transportation grants and revenues that do the fact that we weren't transporting students, those revenues didn't pour in. Even though, you know, there was parts of the contract that were waived. We actually didn't have a net gain by not transporting students because some of those revenues decreased. And so I expected, you know, she's saying she's thinking it could be potentially around $50,000. So we're looking at anywhere at the end of this year at best. I think, you know, it will be short of 490, but I think we're looking anywhere from 480 to $500,000 in deficits over the last two school years. I also believe that we have to prepare for the fact that we're not going to receive potentially all the revenue that was budgeted in your current budget that you approved in March. Why am I saying that? Because a lot of the information we're receiving right now is that we have to be conservative with projecting revenues from the state because the mob pillar right now is not guaranteeing that schools are going to necessarily receive all the revenues that were budgeted. We are also concerned about other grant revenue streams decreasing. And part of the issue when you start to dig into your budgets is, is that revenue, the revenue side is partly why your deficits are occurring. There's an overstatement in revenue and then an underdelivery of revenue. And therefore you have to make up the difference in expenses. So I'm telling you again that I believe as the superintendent that we probably have an overstatement in revenue when we look into 2021 based on the fact that we know COVID is going to hamper our revenue stream. I mean mob pillars said you need to expect less revenues than you budgeted. So with that said, I've been meeting with the principals and I've said that they needed to look at new hires very carefully. And that we needed to make certain that we were only moving forward with the central purchases for the time being until we get a clear outlook on kind of the financial lay of the land around the state for 2021. You know, there's a fear out there that there could be a second wave if there's a second wave and the state was to have to react to that. I'm very concerned about a decrease in consumption tax. I'm hopeful that we can make up a difference in consumption tax around the state over the summer, but consumption tax is what's impacting the ed fund right now. And so I'm also interested as Bob was asking about where we're borrowing money to pay off the deficit, not at this time, but if we don't start doing a better job around budgeting and looking to get into a surplus land, that is something we're going to need to start to consider is budgeting for this deficit. And that is going to increase local taxes or we're going to have to decrease current expenditures. And so what we're looking to do is is make determinations position by position of whether or not we're going to fill them. Those positions will remain on the books, but right now at a management level, we've determined that at this time, this point in time, it would not be wise to replace foreign language or the music teacher position. That doesn't mean we can't decide to do that as we move forward. It doesn't mean we can't decide to do that once we get a better outlook on the financial situation, the lay of the land. But at this time is that you're superintendent of schools and knowing that you're coming off of around a $440,000 deficit in 19 and a small projected deficit in this school year that we have to take a hard look at all expenses. And that's the financial update that I wanted to provide you. And then I will look to just if the board has any input or discussion around that. It's, I mean, I would say it's certainly not, it is certainly not, you know, the way I want to come in as your superintendent of schools is faced with these types of financial situations, but that is just our reality. And we need to be thrifty and smart in order to get ourselves out of this. Can you elaborate on impact to programming related to this world language's position and not filling the music position, please? So I'll, I'm happy to turn that over to the principals. I've been smoking, I've spoken to them at length about that. I said, I don't want this to hamper either one of the programs in a significant way. I also recognize that we aren't going to be able to deliver instruction the exact same way we've done it. So I'll let them speak more about music because they've taken some lead on that. What I can tell you is in regards to foreign language, we're going to be looking at how do we do more interdisciplinary work at some of the elementary level around foreign language to ensure that students have an opportunity to access cultural instruction throughout the upcoming school year. And so Andrew and I've talked some about that already. I mean, my thought and process would be that we would roll it out an idea that and the concept would be that we would take some more full immersion days. Potentially when you look at the calendar around Thanksgiving, there's some breaks within the school year that it just makes sense maybe to potentially do business a bit differently instructionally around the interdisciplinary unit planning and experiential learning. And so I would look for us to try to do some more cultural instruction. That way instead of the traditional means that we've done around our 30-minute sessions in the past. So it wouldn't be that it's just an elimination. What I would look for us to do is say we got to approach it a bit differently. Any of the principals want to jump in around music at this time? Want to jump in? Sure. Let's do it in harmony. It's not been easy. It's not been an easy conversation. And but the principal gave some structure to the music teachers and we said, what if we didn't replace the fourth position? And then they worked with that a little and then we gave a little more structure where we said, what if Kerry Cole focused on the elementary general music and Shannon Bonsignori focused on the 612 choral music and Josh Pauley focused on the 612 instrumental music and then also backfill where needed. They presented us with two scenarios, one with those just those three people meeting the needs of students and then one those three and plus a half and what that would look like. We can do this with three people. It's tighter than we would really like but we can do it and we won't offer as much music in the elementary but I feel like we will have people in their expertise areas and I think I'm speaking both for Andra and Reed there. And I would just say that I really appreciate the music teachers work with us. Two out of three of them were already on the scheduling committee so I know that they worked hard to work through this. I know change is hard. My fear is that if we do fill any position or even put a .5 in that based on the financial climate that we might be cutting them again in a year from now. So I'll just add as the superintendent of school is if this doesn't work and I foresee the need for us to fill a position that I'll be coming to the board and saying we need to fill the position the position still exists in the budget. That position is going to be something the board is going to have to discuss when it comes budget time about whether or not we're going to do a reduction in force in either of these departments or choose to post and fill them. I'm just saying at this time I'm not comfortable filling them. I also think it would be premature because one of the things we need to we still need to finalize is what exactly does in-person instruction mean in the fall and what does that mean in regards to the event that you know are we doing a hybrid model of instruction because you know there's times that we have to have closures due to an outbreak and so I just think bringing on additional staff right now unless they're absolutely essential doesn't make sense. Would it be possible to get a more detailed kind of presentation about what this would actually look like as far as once things are kind of back to normal what this would look like as far as schedule changes and whatnot compared to what we're offering now. I am very concerned about the music programs specifically because you know that's traditionally been a very big strength of our schools and something that our community has been really proud of is the strength of the music program and so I'm concerned that you know we've kind of we went we started banned initially in fourth grade and we kind of went to starting that in fifth grade with the merger happening and then now we're decreasing a staff position so you know. We're not filling a staff position Andrew. I'm choosing not to fill a staff position the position's not been eliminated. Right and so before we would even before that was recommended for next school year for 21-22 we would absolutely talk to you about what is programming look like and the principles can certainly in our July meeting talk to you about what does this look like for September. Okay yeah that'd be good. That's kind of been one of the main strengths and pride of the community is the music program so you know that'd be one of the places that I really would be loads to cut if we have to cut. So just wanted to put that out there. Yeah I think that's a challenge. I mean I guess the update is we're choosing not to fill a support staff position right now a music educator position right now in a foreign language position right now. And we moved one administrator to a teacher contract. That's right. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Was there summer programming? I have a question. Great. How are we covering the salary of the person who was just hired? There was actually monies built into the instructional staffing position Bob within the budget is my understanding that there was more money built in than we actually had the FTE need for and so we're covering money from the professional staff to keep contract line. I don't know what I don't have the lines in front of me right now but that's my understanding and so even though there wasn't an administrator budgeted fully there was some extra additional funds put in under the teacher salary line. I can't speak to you about whether or not it covers the full salary but I do know that there were resources there. Thank you. Is there additional information about summer programming and meals? I would just say the summer program is full. I know on the Bethel campus I'm not 100% sure about the Royalton campus and it's running with a slightly delayed day or not delayed shortened day I think it's a shorter day and they're only running four days a week and there will be food as there has been food. I don't believe that's changing at all. Will it still be in the past we have served meals to anyone under 18 who comes in and it's that will remain the same. Thank you. Okay and we have been actually doing that all along still during this COVID break. Yep. I think the plan is to shift from Monday, Wednesday, Friday pick up to Monday through Thursday pick up when the summer program is in session. So we won't be operating Friday we'll be providing meals for Friday, Saturday, Sunday on Thursdays that is what the current thinking is about that. Okay thank you. Committees for finance facility and co-curriculars. Yes so I just wanted to get the board's sense. I've been talking to all the local boards about the concept of finance and facilities committees that would meet monthly. The finance committee would meet and begin work around budget prep and monitoring monthly expenditure reports. They'd meet with Tara and one of the three principal I think it would be Reid that would be on finance. He's going to be the principal overseeing the K-12 budget. I got that correct right guys give me the thumbs up if I'm remembering this all correctly about your guys' roles and responsibilities. Thank you Owen and we would do preliminary budget work there and then that finance committee would then be informing the board as we go throughout they would also be informing the board in regards to our expenditure reports and finances throughout the upcoming school year. I think that it would be a way for us when we think about finance and operations and the fact that I think that we need to have a really close eye on these two areas to ensure that we're monitoring them in addition to our monthly board meetings and I would look for those committees that then report out to the full board. The facilities committee we have some facility work to do. As we look ahead I know that there's some boiler work that needs to happen on the Beffle campus and therefore there's going to need to be careful planning around that and that will inform our budget work as we move ahead and so I would look for a facilities committee to be meeting right after a finance committee meeting so that terrorists sitting in on both of those and then that the administration would be there with the committee so we would schedule those to be monthly back-to-back committee meetings and those committees would have standing agenda items on the monthly board meetings and that the committees would then report out. The co-curriculars I've had positive experiences in the past to have a co-curricular committee in regards to just ensuring there's some order and routine around how we are going about our processes around extracurriculars and co-curriculars and it allows typically what we've done is we've had a board member or two on it the athletic director and then students and any other a few other community members that are interested maybe from the music boosters and the athletic boosters but to just make certain that we're addressing any concerns at the community level in a proactive way is what that committee would look to do and of course they would be we wouldn't be looking to have those be have enough board representation to have to warn as a board meeting but we would look to have these committee meetings public and invite folks to attend for the co-curricular meeting great so just more outreach with the co-curricular if the board chose would be the thoughts around that also if we look to expand or extracurricular offerings I would look for that committee would be the group that would do that planning and prepare that proposal for the board in the future so I'm just looking to get a sense of whether or not folks are interested we've been working as a on a document around this at the admin level that I could be prepared to roll out in July for you guys and then we would look for you know you to make emotions for board members to join those committees and then we'd get those up and rolling in September yeah I think this makes a lot of sense in terms of helping board members really understand the processes and be involved in this work I'm just looking for the other board members to give me a sense of whether I should continue to pursue this and that we would have a document for you in July or whether or not you say Jamie no we're not really interested in committees and that's fine then I would drop it now this is Lisa I think it's a great idea and really looking forward to seeing these committees come into form I think they're it'll get us more involved and community members more involved but I think there's a lot that would really assist us in knowing what's happening yeah this is Andrew I I think these are great you know one of the things from our articles of agreement that never really happened were community engagement kind of groups that would give community more of a role in the governance of things so yeah I think that this is a good step yeah I think it's a good idea too yeah and I the more we involved in the next what we're supposed to be doing so and I know Tara is excited about the concept of a finance committee great okay so I think that's we don't have to vote on anything tonight we okay so next we have the admin equity statement and I asked for this to be added this was presented at the SU wide board meeting and approved by the supervisory union board for distribution last week and so I just wanted to bring it back to this board and have a discussion if we if we needed to so I'm wondering if the administrators since they played a role in drafting it wanted to share a little bit it's linked in the document everybody's really quiet tonight I'm not used to this what oh and I'm gonna you brought me up to speed on this document I'm gonna look for you take what document are you referring to our letter yeah oh it's not linked here I'm sorry I'm making the report um note the administrator the equity statement is it the one from our district or from the SU well I think you could speak to both they're very similar right you guys wrote a letter originally and then the SU right it's the SU one that I'm talking about that's the one I'm going to tell you're with all right it's linked in the principles report right okay I knew I saw the link somewhere I'm sorry you're fine and I'll put it in the chat so it's easy to get to okay I think Ray already did it um so this is really you know it's in some ways it's long overdue and though the world has been provoked to take a stand and I think we stand as educators and I know Reed and Andrew will let me know from out of base but I'm not that we we believe in peace and we believe in justice and we believe in social justice and we believe in being honest and most of all we believe in education and we need to educate ourselves our the students we serve and to let the communities we know where we stand that everybody's welcome and safe in our learning community and our larger community we've committed in the letter the one that we did as a district we committed to doing professional development on on a regular ongoing basis and that it would not be a one-year thing or and it's been talked about and now it's pushed into the front and I feel like I'm proud of what we said as a group and I'm proud of what we said as an SU some of the I can I'll just add um that I think we will be looking in our policy committee we're going to be looking at the idea based on the SU discussion last week around an equity policy I'd also look at how can we do um I think we have a great resource at the Vermont Law School that we don't tap into enough educationally and how can we partner up with them around some of this work as well I think there's a gap if you look at our strategic plan that the area where it talks about equity it's about academic access equity but we don't go near any of the big protected groups and it's something that I think does fit into our mission statement but regardless of whether it's like in a document or not we know that it's the right thing to do and the time to do it is now yeah I really like in your statement the way it's grounded in language that our students already know respect responsibility um so when I read it I you know noted that that was in safety yep and and I appreciate that I do look forward to seeing a policy um at the policy committee level I know some of the language around this is charged and some of it is uh can be very confrontational so an example I'll give an example um later this weekend I'm not bragging but I'm bragging I'm taking part in a group to discuss white supremacy and my place and responsibility in that and it's just for white people and I know it's going to be a hard conversation just to sit in and I'm a grown man with gray hair and I've lived and it's going to be hard for me so when we start doing this with young people or with folks that have not necessarily like looked into these issues it's it's doubly hard for them and they're going to need more support from us and the person the people that most hard to love need the most love from us I also you know one of the things I think we need to continue to look at throughout rut is is how do we look to continue to strengthen student voice in this and I think when we look at um social justice that student voice is critical for that to become alive and well within schools well I agree um and one of the things that I would love to see happen um because I've heard from so many students who um I just know because they're in the community um who are interested in learning more and knowing more and understanding I'd love to see us have a partnership with the Vermont law school looking at um equity as a like a legal like legally where you know what guarantees are supposed to be in place in terms of equity I just feel like that's a place where we could forge a community connection and our students could be exposed to all different people who come to our area to be educated if we were in school when all this was happening we and most likely at the high school level but very much still could have been anywhere we would have to be addressing this with students who would be wanting to speak their peace and in some ways we're lucky because we get an opportunity to plan for that or to work with kids on that but I think we need to also be ready for any protesting that might happen in in our communities of our learning communities right there's another resource in South Wilton which is bail the building a local economy and they're doing a lot of work around racial and social equity so let's not and they they do a lot they do a lot of stuff with the Vermont law school but let's make sure that we don't forget them good call yeah I think it would be great to have a variety of stakeholders at the table that's a good point we've only just begun thank you any other thoughts or comments I would just say that could be something that if the board wanted as an agenda item for discussion on a monthly part of our monthly reports just think about that okay hi I would just simply add that I really appreciate Owen taking the lead on on getting the ball rolling for this work it was needed and we took the initiative on this which led to the other principles in the SU calling us all together and we had an extremely collaborative writing session where we started with with Owen's ideas and and fleshed it out it doesn't look much like what what we started with but it it came out with some really strong language that the the principles felt committed to and I think we all felt really good about the outcome of that work thank you all right so we've already approved the tax anticipation now and the policies which brings us to our second public comment um and I believe that we may not have any public um right now I'm just looking down the list so if anyone wants to chime in with something um yeah every everybody here Tammy would be our only public our note taker I can can you hear me yes okay um so this piggyback sound a prior conversation I understand COVID has thrown a wrench into kind of planning and the in the writing in person I'm stumbling with my words I apologize um the in-person classes being held in the fall and the nature of that that dynamics evolving and so there was a decision to not proceed forward in hiring for three positions uh support position a music position in a foreign language position and from an elementary perspective um as a parent we were focusing on the core components so if we were to continue to remote learn those core components were really really hard given the challenges that we were juggling um and so the conservative decision to hold off right now makes sense um though the education received from those programs in a remote environment were challenging um so I appreciate the conservative process though difficult um I appreciate the conservative budgeting decision there thank you thank you Tammy all right um and that brings us to other yes Bob um Jamie of how long is our transportation contract I've been told it's five years Bob I'm asking for a copy of that by the way and I have a meeting with them set up with Tara tomorrow um so I can review that because I've got I've got a lot of questions about in regards to based on what recommendations may or may not end up being around transportation about what makes sense as we move forward in my letter says at this time we're trying to work with the company to ensure that transportation can occur but I didn't commit us to transportation or not at this time um because I'm waiting on those guidelines how many years do you know how many years we are into the contract I know I haven't seen the contract at all I think it's been two years because I remember working on the contract when I was fairly newer being on the board I just yeah I know it's a five year contract and my assumption was we weren't in year one so I think it started when the merger started uh that first year of the merge school was was the first year of the new busing contract I'd like to go I'd like to know how that contract works we're gonna get you right on that finance committee bar on the transportation committee too I think when the last time we sent the bids out there was only one company that did on it I think we'd probably try to get more people on it this year this time around or next time around yeah it was hard to collect bids yes Ray I'm looking back I also have a question and uh I believe so in 2016 Donna told me that it expired in 2018 if that makes sense wow I think that's in line with what Rodney just said right so we're in year two so next year's year three of five it sounds like it Lisa you had a question uh yeah um in grounds I bring this up a lot and I know that we we're not quite sure what all the costs are or why the costs are as high as they are but I hope that I don't see that covered maybe that would be a facilities committee thing but um I do know that that my understanding and I still I would clarification but it looked to me from previous bites that the cost for building grounds when Royalton was just the South Royalton school and Bethel's just Bethel's school those two um if you put them together if we had combined the amounts for those um those contracts they were way less combined than what we have as a contract right now like we're spending about $50,000 more than we would have if we just added the two separate contracts together as as a merge school and I could be wrong there but that's just sketchy information that I've had over the years and it's being brought up into the agenda to get clarification um I would like us to really have have a grasp on that so I'd like to just make sure that that's a future agenda item and then we don't lose it in the in the weeds of other things because I think it's a big it's a big deal and I don't understand why it's so much more expensive and maybe it's because I was understanding it incorrectly maybe it's not but I'm pretty sure it is so I just want to make sure that that's a future agenda item and I'm not really sure how to wrap that in because I think people are going to have to pull some numbers together and that's not me the other thing is having had that uh encore renewable energy presentation I want to make sure that that's a future agenda item so that we get more information so that we can make a decision because right now we don't have enough information on what future renewable energy actions are going to be taken um on the Bethel campus before we sign a dotted line for solar power and I totally am into renewable energy I mean we live off the grid but I don't want us to commit to something when all of a sudden it's based on our our energy usage that's outdated so anyway we need to we need to keep pecking away at that so that we can go into it and maybe make a good decision and take advantage of it or finish some projects and then take advantage of it that's it that sounds good I wrote down those future agenda items yep any other future agenda items all right um did we make a decision about our July meeting I know there was an email that went out a while ago that week um yes from you sorry um and I don't I don't recollect all of the responses that week is a week that I'm away having said I mean if we go camping I don't know um it could just be at home like every other week um so I proposed Rudd would be just your regular schedule meeting on July 21st yep so that's if everyone's in favor of keeping that I think that's a great idea we definitely always have enough to communicate about yeah sounds good to me okay all right that's our next meeting I would entertain a motion to adjourn if everybody's ready motion to adjourn right back in all right all in favor bye bye have a good night bye everybody