 Okay, we're recording. Please go ahead. Okay. Welcome everyone. This is the meeting of the finance committee. I'm calling it to order at 403 p.m. We do have a quorum, although we're missing a couple of our, our members. This meeting is being held remotely so pursuant to a variety of, of, of actions by the legislature. And so all comment will public comment will be via zoom or via telephone. If you are on on a phone line, you can, you can raise your hand by, I think it's star nine. And then we can, we can identify, we can bring you in for public comment. I apologize for the confusion on the start time of this meeting, but we, it was because of the holiday on Monday, we, I was not able to get it set up in time. So we had to push it back to four o'clock in order to give 48 hours notice as required. So I do apologize for that. But hopefully that means more people will be able to join in and listen. Let's go around. I see Kathy has joined us. Let's go around the room to see whether you could be, I can hear you and you can hear me. Matt. Here, Bob. Councilor Hanneke. Present. Andy. Present. Kathy. I'm here. All right. Doug, we can hear you. I see how he's here. Can we hear you? You're on, you're on mute, Holly. Yes, I am here. And I just wanted to apologize to everybody because of the change in times. I did not communicate that to our auditors and they had another commitment that they were not going to be able to make today. So we are rescheduling the auditors for, I believe it is the May 7th meeting. Okay. No problem. Let's put that in there. Pardon me, Bob. I'm noticing that Councilor Lord is in the audience. This meeting isn't posted as a joint meeting of the council and finance committee. I just wanted to. Let you know the meeting next week on the 25th, the public forum on the regional school budget is posted as a finance committee and town council meeting. So counselors will be joining that meeting. Okay. Yeah. Kathy, my, my connection is spotty. So I'm going to make you a co-host so you can help with public comment if you don't mind to allow people to talk. That's fine. Thanks. Thank you, Kathy. So we have a Kathy, did you want to say? Yeah, I just have a quick question. I guess it's of Holly in reading through the documents for the audit on the main document, which is the financial accounting item. I have a couple of questions just on terms, which is a little embarrassing because it may be the fifth or fifth year I've looked at these are six year, but can I just send them to you, Holly? You know, it's purely like, what's the definition of this and where does the number come from? So it's not on the auditor's report. I mean, I can see, I can go through you, Bob, if you want to, because others may have them. Okay. Thanks. Holly, if you could just respond to Kathy and myself and now I'll just send it around to the committee so everyone has the same information. Yep, that's fine. Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Okay, so I think we, we trying to think we have seven attendees. But I think, well, Doug, can I ask you, is Mary best going to be able to join us? Do you know? I really don't. I'm not sure. I think she might be traveling. So I don't think she's okay. Okay. So I think for those, our agenda is kind of blown up. But I think we should launch right into the review of the school budget to give Doug a chance to, you know, have a say and then move on to other things and then we'll have public comment after that. Doug, I'm going to turn it over to you. We sent you a bunch of questions and Matt, did you want to excuse recuse yourself? Yeah, Bob, I'm going to go ahead and recuse right now and Athena, thank you for moving me into the audience. Okay. Okay, so Doug, you know, can you just give us, you know, your responses and I mean, I know we asked a lot of different questions. So maybe you can kind of give us a, you know, you don't have to answer everyone verbatim. But if you can give us a kind of an overall view of the budget as it evolved. So let me ask this question. I'm not sure I've gotten those questions. So when will they sit? They came from Bob. I sent them from to Athena and to Lynn, but I did not send them to you. Okay, so, well, maybe I should just go through what we have. I know you won't be able to answer some of these right away. But we do have time so maybe if we can get them to you. We can, you know, you can you can fill in some of the blanks. One of the things the first thing we wanted to know was, you know, kind of over time, the staffing and enrollment trends. So, and we wanted every like five years so it's not, you know, super burdensome but the idea is to look at how many FTE staff we have. How's that broken out between regular and special needs? How many students? How many students with disabilities? So just to see the patterns over time or the trends over time. And I obviously you maybe you can give us a verbal summary, but obviously you obviously can't give us the precise numbers right now. Yeah, I can give you a brief overview. I mean, in general, our enrollments are down over the last several years. And so the tricky thing is that our, you know, when you scale that way, you know, students sort of leave in in small numbers over time, but the sort of changes in staffing tend to be a little more stepwise because you know, sort of reduces section requires a certain number of students at that grade level kind of grouping to cause that to happen. So, so while I think they track pretty closely, I mean, you know, over time, we've reduced staff in some areas in corresponding fashion to the student enrollment. You know, it's probably not entirely kept exactly the same pace as the student enrollment. I think as far as, you know, when you look at our number of students in special education, the percentage has gone up. What's really happened there is is, and this is true in a number of our categories of students, depending on what you want to pick, you know, English learners, etc. Is that generally speaking, we've held fairly steady in the numbers of students in those categories and the totality of students has gone down so the percentage has gone up. So we see a slight increase in the percentage or not so slightly increase in percentage sometimes but you see an increase in the percentage of students. But the total number of students has stayed not too different. It's the it's the overall student count that that's gone down. So, and I think the other thing just special education specifically is I think some things are presenting differently than they have in past. And so we're seeing a tick relative to need for students more in the mental health and social emotional sort of categories. And that's a very, very broad statement. I wouldn't, you know, do I have the, that's anecdotal as well. I wouldn't suggest that I crunch the numbers on that, but that's the, that's the indication there in some respects on that. But I think in a broad sense, I did a quick look earlier in like number of administrators we had, I don't know, 20 years ago versus now are people in the sort of central office versus this change in enrollment. In fact, the envelope and we've scaled kind of similarly, you know, in other words, we've lost X number student or percentage of students. We've lost a similar number of central office staff so we've kind of scaled certainly centrally, you know, in a fairly parallel way to the students. My expectation would be that just by necessity we've had to do the same thing with staffing teaching another staff as well. If anybody has any questions, please raise your hand, you know, as as Doug goes along. Yeah, I know you don't have the numbers and it's going to be really important for us to get some numbers. You know, by the 25th when we have a hearing I'm not sure if we don't have written answers to some of these questions we're going to be able to make a recommendation at that hearing on the 25th. But you talk about the numbers of special ed students staying approximately consistent, even if the percentage looks different because of the decrease in total enrollment. What do you know of the numbers of educators for special education, whether it be certified teachers or para educators over that same amount of time has that number stayed fairly steady. Or has that number increased or decreased, you know, where does that relate compared to, you know, a steady number of enrolled students or fairly steady enrolled students and special needs. Let me see if I can answer that in a more concrete way. See how quickly I can get to perhaps an answer in that regard, broadly speaking. My guess would be as far as and I'll look up the actual numbers here a little bit more closely. You know, our, our, our trends in, you know, looking at special education instruction so to be teachers at the middle school and high school have trended upward a little bit but it's been steady over the last 222324 last three years. You know, you look at, let's see if I can find the sort of para educator section because that's where the big numbers are with our teachers and our paras. Yeah, those have trended up to some extent. You know, I can get you better numbers before your meeting on the, on the, on the 25th. So that is a Thursday meeting just to make sure I got the date right 25th, is that right. Yeah, so some of those have trended up. And so some of that's dependent upon, you know, the specifics of particular kids needs. So that makes a difference as to how, you know, whether or not kids need a pair educator or don't need a pair educator as part of their IEP. You know, those just informing broadly or the group broadly about, you know, the IEP process individualized education plans contract between the district and the parents and the families about what's the best way and the most release or the least restrictive way to provide educational services to those students, but it is binding. So once that agreement is signed, that is what we are compelled to provide in order to meet the requirements of that and to educate that student. And so if our students profiles have changed, then we have to meet those needs, whatever those have to be. That's a factor that's sort of, you know, not purely financial sometimes, and it varies from year to year, you know, with regard to who the kids are and what their needs are. I mean, obviously what we'd like to do with a lot of kids is if we can have them mature in a way as they get through and and proceed through high school to mature out of some of that level of need, that'd be great. Not everybody does. And I think that that are the kinds of things that we're seeing with regard to the pandemic and results of that are showing up in some of our our staffing levels for sure. Again, I don't know that you can answer this now but we did like to also see a comparison between Amherst and other towns with a similar size 7 to 12 enrollments in terms of overall costs, and you know, mix of regular and special needs. Again, it may not may not have all that information, but anything you can do to kind of like anchor what we're doing versus what other other towns are doing in terms of the costs and, you know, I can tell you, I can tell you from a staffing standpoint we have we have more staff than most other towns, you know, they're sort of similar in size. Do we have, you know, wildly different profiles I don't I don't know that we necessarily do or don't. But but we do have more staff in particular para educators we have a much higher number than most other other districts do I think how we approach that is a little different some of it depends on. So it's driven by the programming that we offer which kind of skews things a little bit sometimes. In other words, there, there are, for example, we offer some in district programs of a higher level of need which have higher level of staffing, and we also have a lot fewer out of district placements than a lot of districts our size. So there's a sort of give and take between those two dynamics because, you know, we send kids out. And we've had enough ticking that this year, and it's a disconcerting one for us, because we like to be able to have those kids be in our district. But that's part of the trade off to when we start to compare with other districts is do they offer programming like we do that allows kids to remain within within the district. And also bolsters are our in house costs and in house personnel counts so we've got to kind of weigh those those against each other so take a holistic of you to that to that but I can. I'll get you some more specifics but certainly we have more parents than other people do and I think we have more programming other people do. And less out of district placements than other people do. Thank you. That that that comment just brought up a question in my mind, we talk a lot about per student costs and how that relates to the amount of money that is paid in charter tuition out of our district to other charters. That is based on per student costs of our district. And how does that per student cost if you. I'm just trying to figure out relationships here, not advocating something one way or another I just have to ask that state that before I ask this question. How does that relate to the charter per student cost formula for sending a student out of district versus providing all of those services in district. Does providing them in district go into our per student costs for charter school tuition costs and does out of district placements go into the per student costs or are they calculated separately. I'm going to give you an unsatisfactory answer here. Yes and no. So some of the costs are included and some of them are not included. And so it gets, it gets kind of messy relative to sort of teasing that out. And I'll look into the specifics and see if I can, you know, offer it a more constructive way for you guys in getting prepared for the budget but but there are aspects and this is one of the concerns I have about that charter funding formula is. The nature and severity of of kids and their needs is different in a general public school versus a charter school charter school still considered a public school but you know when you have certain areas of focus that sort of thing it by default precludes certain students from pursuing that as an option. So the kinds of level of need that they're dealing with is different. And yet I'm not sure all of that some of that's taken into account in the formulas but not all of it. Can I follow up. Yeah. Does the formula for that charter school tuition include the out of district tuition placements or those excluded from the formula. Or exactly because there's multiple pieces to an out of district placement. There's the actual placement itself. There's transportation costs. There's, you know, is there support for the student on the transportation. You know, those different sort of component pieces and I just I'm not sure off top of my head which which are, which aren't and to what extent. Okay, thank you. Okay, so. Next set of questions really are ways of maybe alternatively addressing the FY 25 budget. The first question here is, you know, if we were able to do a one time gift, say of $300,000. What would the, you know, what's teaching staff for other positions would be the top priority for that. That's a great question. I think that it, it probably depends on who you ask, but I think the in the in the nitty gritty of that sort of in between, you know, sort of. What was talked about in in February and what was talked about in in and voted on by the school committee in March. We haven't had that conversation about what about in between there. I think that that, you know, in general, you know, one of the lenses that the school committee took when they were taking this was to try to, you know, any sort of student facing positions are the ones that they wanted to restore. Obviously, those that have the greatest impacts. And have the, the, you know, greatest impact in other ways, primarily on students, but also staff because, you know, we're going to use things like. Retirements and exits and that sort of thing to help mitigate the personal impact on individual personnel. And I think that it goes to sort of core teaching things that you have to do so special education requirements of, like I said earlier of the IP that's going to certainly be areas where we're going to try to bolster those a little bit. We're going to look at our, our most impactful areas of core academics, and then, you know, electives would be sort of the third tier that's the broad sketch of it, I'd have to have the conversations with I haven't had yet with the with the administration talk about what's their practical approach and it's always depends on on course enrollments and sort of where the needs are from a standpoint of what kids have chosen. So if they were expecting to cut, I'm going to make something up here. Woodworking, which you know, and then suddenly 25 kids shine up for woodworking we need a section would work you know that kind of thing changes what the conversation was a month ago, or two months ago. So those also play into the choices that will make us as a district moving ahead but I think you know if you think about sort of the triage of trying to keep it away from students as much we can. And, you know, those things that have the highest level of impact, which would be, you know, and, and requirements associated with them like special education, or core subjects that have to be talked to every student. And then electives that's going to be the broad, you know, lens that we take to that. Yeah, you know, Doug, I apologize. He didn't come to earlier, especially this one, because this is, I think it requires, you know, what you just did, you know, trying to mull it over so the notion is whether it's 200 300,000 and it's just let's just for the time being Amherst giving you the money, trying to get a sense of, if you went back to the drawing board with staff. What would be where would you most likely put that money compared to what you've shown with the with the cuts. So rather than trying to give us an answer now it was trying to say the ask of Amherst was 700,000 but something considerably less. And the other thing I want to say is that if this were just literally one time, you know, so this just takes you through to next year, and then you're back where you are. You know, just trying to think through what, what, what would be the priorities internally, knowing that it would be student facing but your program areas or anything, it would be helpful for us to know. And I'm not, I crafted this question, but I'm not, I'm not convinced we've got $200,000 but it's a sense of something less than the ask. What, what would it buy. It's a pretty crass way of stating that. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate the ask and it is a legitimate sort of thing I was, you know, we're trying to put together some some materials for for Saturday's meeting and thinking about exactly that sort of thing is like is there some in between we can have a conversation about what does that mean and and I think it, you know, the answer to live is that it depends. If it's sustained support, that's the very different conversation than if it's one time support. Because if we, you know, generally speaking, giving what we what we put back in with with the budget that the school committee voted are things that if, if not continued to be supported so if it's one time. They just get reduced the following year potentially if it's ongoing support then it's then it's a little different sort of strategic conversation about how some of those things play out over time. And like I said, you know, I'll put together some answers with with staff about that a little bit and and they're thinking on those on those fronts and and again there's a piece of it though that also depends on on. Well, there's some there's some strategies for the district as far as how do we compete in a in a market because that's what we do as a school with, you know, charter and choice options out there. To one of the things that that retain students within our building, what evidence we have that those work with strategies and then you also have, you know, what our programs that we've been trying to encourage and develop and what do we think kids are going to want to take. We want to sort of meet the kids where they where they want to be as far as those those course offerings and programs that they have. Thank you. These next questions are, I'm going to combine to that that they really get at the specifics that you proposed. I mean, it's kind of complicated because you have the levels. You have the school services budget, then you have the original budget that was voted, and then you have the increased budget, which was, you know, which has been approved or voted by the school committee. You basically had some, you know, there was a focus on world languages in these, the sort of the final budget, or you originally proposed that cut and then you, you, that was restored in the final budget. And then there were some other counseling and some other positions. So, so first of all, how many of these were Esther supported positions versus, you know, just just other positions. Number two, why these particular cuts rather than other, you know, other cuts. And then sort of associated with that is, I know that there was a lot of concern among the parents at the town council meeting about the loss of AP classes, you know, in languages, you know, further on downstream when they're the students are middle school and students are juniors and seniors. But what about working with Amherst College and UMass to get more availability of college level language courses, which could be, you know, my son took a math, a math class at UMass and got college credit for it. So it could be quite beneficial for the students. So I just wanted to kind of put, if you can just kind of give us some idea of the rationale behind the specific cuts that were that were proposed. Yeah, so, so just to the answer question first, you know, the way we supported the budget this year was a general supportive answer so it sort of pushes into a variety of areas, mostly in our expense budget, and not really staffing positions. We didn't have any staff that are explicitly, you know, there may be some that ultimately get funded that way, but, but we didn't explicitly fund staff with with as her funds. It was more general budget support, mostly on the expense side but not exclusively will sort of see how that plays out over the course of the current year and even into the new year to some extent. To the question of sort of why some of these I think some of it has to do with. So some of it was was at the high school they had some some reorganization of departments was really reducing the number of departments and it changes the amount of time released for department head work it makes it harder to get that work done but it is an economy that that that increases the amount of teaching staff because there's less time released to do department head and so there's, there's, you know, some loss in in that, you know, administration coordination curriculum support etc that department heads do as a result of that but it but it also has a number of sections of classes for kids. That's one piece of what was in there and then and I think then the other, the other piece is relative to sort of schedule and and how our schedule fits and how it's framed and, and, you know, sort of how many kids are sitting in some of the sections we have now with the course offerings that we have and looking at that going. That's a pretty expensive section right and so can we structure that in a different way, and it's also, you know, the pushback understandably is that it's if you change to a different model of delivery, it's a very different program and so it does limit, you know, less is less. So if you offer less than the, the opportunities for kids are less and whether it's world language or mathematics or pick a topic it. It's really a variety that was one where the, the sort of class sections gave opportunity to maybe think of it differently and it does, you know, put limitations on what kids are able to explore by the time they finish their senior year. And obviously, we're always looking at opportunities to connect with ecologists to do stuff. They're very good partners with us in that regard. We have a variety of opportunities for kids and so we try to do that. When we can, you know, nice thing about AP classes is they sit during the school day. In the languages in particular they tend to be co taught at the same time so we'll have a section a time of day that has both an AP class going on simultaneously with, you know, like a level four level five language class. So the classroom might have 15 students in it and, you know, five are in an AP class and 10 are in, in level five and the one teacher that's sort of straddling those two, those two worlds. And so we do, you know, do some economy along those lines to try to make things workforce as well. You know, there's some limits to what that can do and what what experience that is for the kids. And, you know, if you offer less early in the process of world language then, you know, to get to an AP level requires some significant choices by students in their scheduling and their elective options as they as they go through to get to that place. In other words, if you wanted to get, you know, if you limit their choices to begin with then to get to an AP level requires essentially what they call doubling up, which means, you know, instead of taking sort of one more language per year you take two one year, same thing happens in mathematics, same thing can happen in other courses as well. Not optimal in a lot of ways and in some ways it's an option but it's not, you know, if you're taking two languages in a year that means there's some other elective you're not taking. Right, so it is limiting your choices in some form or another whether it be in world language or in in in some other option that you might have explored, had you had more flexibility in your schedule. Yeah. The doubling up thing I know this is not necessarily the finance committees per view but I do have to say that that's actually not possible for some of the languages in my view and so I think you have to be forthright about that for Chinese for example I mean unless you're going to allow to take Chinese one and Chinese to at the exact same time, same semester same time you can never double up in Chinese with the current way of Chinese offerings Chinese one two and three or in the spring semester Chinese for five AP and culture and literature or in the fall semester. So unless you're taking one and two at the same time or two and three literally at the same time which is probably not doable because you need one to take two, you can't double up, and you can't take four before you take three. So to say that that's a possibility when talking about the language cuts I think is disingenuous and I know that's not where finance deals with. But I think the school should be more forthright about what the middle school cut to languages would potentially mean in the future, which is for some languages, no AP. Given the current schedule, unless the schedule changes. And I think that's the critical point that would be made would be that potentially schedule could be differently so the fact that we currently only offer one, you know levels one two and three in the spring could be altered so as to allow kids the opportunity. But it also depends on, you know demand is there a sufficient level, you know, like if you have to offer level two in both the fall and spring. You know you have to have enough students to take it to make that worthwhile but but it's a it's within the room of possibility, but I get your point though it's it's also as currently structured would that allow you to get there now. I can't simultaneously take one and two because you're in the efficient foundational skill to do two if you haven't done one yet so you know it. And I think that the thinking is that likely the the the avenue would be to to to alter the schedule to make that a possibility. I think the other thing that we have to weigh here as we think about this and we think about. And it doesn't matter that you pick a program area and this is is the conundrum is what are we offer what can we offer and what and how many students are impacted by those kinds of things. And that's part of the calculus to is is when we start thinking about some of these choices and it's like we don't, you know, we don't want to put those limitations and, you know, is it better to have, you know, throwing this is a as a value judgment at all and you know it's like is it is it better have AP Chinese or AP calculus of some sort versus class sections in ninth grade of 30 versus 22. I mean that's some of the tradeoffs that are happening with with those differences that are all part of the mix of this and trying to find those balances between between those things. And that's the struggle we're going to have as our moment shrinks a little bit and we want to try to continue to offer this wide spectrum of programs which are great and we'd love to. But we're we're going to have to think about that very carefully over the coming years as to as to whether we can continue do we just have the student population to sustain some of the offerings we've had in the past. Or are we, or do we do something else with school choice or do we I mean I think we need to explore all those, you know, ideas. You know, sort of simultaneously because you know, world language is the the the area that got a lot of conversation in in the converse, you know, in the in the last few months. It could have been about a different area. You know, we could have been having at about math or social study offering, or any of the others I think so I don't want to, you know, hyper focus on on one. I think there's a more systemic thing we've got to look at and think about over the coming years to. You know, structure ourselves in a way that that is functional and as deep and as broad as we can do for all of our students. Yeah, I want to just build on as Bob said he asked a complicated almost three part question but the, the Amherst new mass part of it. Doug, I know you've been over there, at least once to say, can you offer us some financial help and I know Amherst College does do some in kind work particularly with the elementary schools. They had they gave me a list, but I'm really wondering about the higher level courses across the board if we could have a, if there's been an exploration or could there be of the advanced placement courses the ability to take a course so what I know about is people who did physics who did math. I'm not sure I knew anyone who did language, but I'm just thinking, you know, in my son's piece but there is. If you do languages you mass is rich in the scope of languages that's offered and I don't know how much union contracts preclude a student teacher. Who is going for a teaching degree in a language or in an area coming in and being lead teacher for an extra language course or something but trying to think of what the valley what our town is rich in is edgy other educational institutions and this they could have as in kind support if we had a more formal arrangement and whether that could be done in time for September, or could be done with a, this is our glide path and where we're going. So that's my longest question on seeing them as researchers research sources for particularly for our regional schools. Those are all areas of, you know, that we're interested in continuing to explore and partner with them. I mean, you know, we do have to have and consider schedules when we have kids off campus, you know, it's like how quickly can they get there and get back and how does it fit in ways that that have meaning and then when does when do the you know the colleges university offer those classes to in other words we're not going to dictate to the university how they're offering class granted something about world language which they do a lot of because all the, you know, all the arts and science majors have to take language so they offer a lot of sections of of various world languages so there's there's a lot of opportunity there but I think also that's that schedule question is a real one that we have to consider as a part and parcel of this too. But yeah I think there's opportunities how quickly we can get something more formal than we have now I mean we have a few things in place and at present and and I think I can kind of pose those questions and see what what staff who dealt with with some of that. What complications arise when they try to try to plug those things in. Thank you. Doug the committee has, has there's been a little bit of concern expressed about there. There's apparently, and don't take this the wrong way but the apparent lack of planning. In other words, we had this fiscal cliff coming. It doesn't appear that, you know, it's suddenly honest now and now we have a big hole in the budget and next year we have a bigger hole, bigger hole. There's, you know, we, the school committee, regional school committee didn't really go through this at the four towns meeting before, you know, it kind of got sprung to us so some of the questions that that we have are related to kind of it. What, what, from the outside appears to be, you know, a lack of planning and a lack of, you know, understanding that, you know, we, that there has to be some changes made in order to, you know, as essence funds were used for, for purposes, as they weren't not available we had to, you know, there has to be a to, to adjust for that so anyway, I'm not, I don't take this to be pejorative it's just that there is a concern about, you know, these things suddenly hitting us. Yeah, I would suggest. I wouldn't say they're suddenly hitting us I think they've, they've hit us a little bit over the last couple years and, and we'll continue to hit us a little bit I think that, you know, we have been trying to take some strategic approaches to how we've used. So we've used our SR funding how we've used some of our other funds that we can leverage a little more control so how we've used our school of choice over the last couple years how we've used our, our other revolving funds, you know, we have a few revolving funds that that we have intentionally in order to over the last couple years because we could use SR funds and then preserve those for smoothing out this, this, this drop I don't think we're quite in a severe places some other districts, and yet it's still, you know, it's still a pretty significant hit and I think, I think from the other thing I'd say that's been, you know, compromising our ability to be plan full about some of this is, you know, I've been spending time as talented and capable and, you know, as staff are in the business office, you know, I'm still splitting some time there there's a level of institutional knowledge I have that I have been able to share with them because there's only some hours a day and I think that you know when you look at building principles go across two buildings in middle school high school, which we're trying to shift away from now but but those things all contribute a little bit as well so there's been a number of factors there that that have have, you know, interrupted or made it difficult to be as as plan full as we'd like to be. And I think that could we have been more more plan full absolutely. And I think we've done some things I think we're, you know, we're leaning into that if you look at in some materials I said you know there's some things at the top that are adjustments where we're shifting costs on to revolving funds for, for our summit Academy for some of our administrative staff etc that that we're able to do that we didn't spend those during the the pandemic dollars and we can sustain those for a little while to help us sort of bridge this timeframe and and so there's a mix bag of things could we have done more absolutely don't doubt it at all and it's it's a it's a tricky thing I think the other thing is that you know the sort of revenue sources that we have, you know, particularly chapter 70 have have really been very flat. And the difficulty is given this, you know, that's, you know, a couple years ago that was in the 31% of our revenue was chapter 70. It's now down to 2728% you know when it goes up less than what percentage point our costs are going up whether they go 4% or they go up 8% you know you're still behind when your revenue doesn't kind of keep pace so that's another thing that's kind of compounding and and in a way the the you know the answer funds as chapter 70 has been sort of flat as we've shifted funding to other districts in the Commonwealth because the Commonwealth has certainly spent more money on chapter 70. It's just been targeted to some districts are really in a higher level of need than we are. The SR funding has has made that shift less noticeable because we've been able to use SR funds to kind of alleviate that that shortfall and in direct support from the state. And then I think that you know now that the answer funds are running out that that small percentage increase in revenue from the state is is much more noticeable to us. And you know that coupled with you know some of the revenue estimates from the state or lower so they're much more cautious about their budget for fiscal 25 etc etc so it's a compounding effect here but but anyway so I think there's there's some ways it's you know that revenue problems been a little bit hidden because we've had SR funds to help us a little bit, but it's kind of becoming much more front and center at the at the present time. Annie. And the dog following up on what you just said. I think that those of us who've watched the budget year for year over a long period of time know that what happens each year is that we start with this district calculating the level services budget from the prior year and finding out the size of the gap based upon information at the Fort Towns meeting and then finding what the gap is and there seems to be always more reductions than additions or anything else. So what it's really evident is that over a long course of time the inflation each year and cost is exceeding the inflation and revenue. And gets into the question of what causes to reach such a steep cliff this year or was it just a matter that it was going to happen and this year it happened. And then the other thing is that I had talked with John Tricky in Pellum and John said that he had been asking about a three year plan to see what we could expect to happen over the next three years given what's being asked of this year. And is that something that we're going to be able to see on Saturday? Yes. So we're working on that right now and looking at that. I mean there's a ton of assumptions that fall into that that are going to make people a little uncomfortable because there's a lot of unknowns in there. But at the same time we're going to do the best we can to sort of estimate those things out over a couple of years time to sort of see either compounding effects or the reduction of compounding effects on some things. I don't see the chapter 70 unless there's a major change to chapter 70 or if the Student Opportunity Act continues to play out as it will over the next couple of years. I don't see that revenue sources suddenly getting much much better. So we're going to be still in a somewhat revenue starved circumstance relative to our expenses. And while we have declining enrollment I'm not sure it you know and some of how we've we've coped in past years is is that we've had some of the reductions make sense relative to declining enrollment. So you know the need to be exactly level services isn't always perfectly true if we have a if we have reductions in number of kids. But yeah we'll put together some numbers and project out for the next couple of years and sort of see how things look you know in in different scenarios of of revenue and expense and and how that you know might play out in the in the coming years. We're literally I've had multiple conversations literally today just talking about how do we how do we sort of present this how do we make sure the numbers are right what kind of assumptions do we want to include or not include and that sort of thing to to get those numbers for for the whole group on Saturday. Yeah Doug just to cut follow up on that a little bit one of the questions that is is in this sheet is the the sort of impact of changes in the middle school to the high school you know in other words if you reduce languages in the middle school how does that impact high school. And so I would hopefully your your assumptions will take that into account that you know if we make certain cuts in the middle school then or we support you know we add certain things in the middle school then then we have to this what is what the impact in high school was so because that's another dynamic there that. Yeah, as best we can we'll try to put that in it may be a little broader cut than that there's a number of things that have very sort of broad Assumptions associated so sometimes something more specific like that is a little harder to track in a real way but at the same time we're going to try to capture the the intent of that as we move as we move through the years. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Councillor Hanna key. A couple things with this conversation so the first one is much more of a not not related to this at all but I was looking for us now the line item budget. And it's not on the town's website or the school's website under the budget office under budget links at all when you go through the business office budgets and all of that. The last budget you get is the FY 24 one and documents unless I'm looking in the wrong area it's very hard to find on the school's website. I did eventually find it in a January presentation in board of docs. Not with the budget hearing. It was not attached to the meeting where the region school had their budget hearing only the presentations were and the final like one pager. I think that lack of openness is a problem it should be easily found. It shouldn't take me 20 minutes to find. It should be attached to every agenda where the budget is discussed in some sense or easily found on a website and it wasn't easily found but but that that's for you know for future planning. When we talk about cuts and we talk about level services. The level services budget you presented that then had cuts. Never got adjusted for things like lower insurance rates that got adjusted and was presented as an adjustment at the end of level services. But there's no change to levels. There's no change to services when insurance is cheaper than you projected in January in June you know in April when the insurance rates came out and we knew what they were. The budget document was not changed to reflect lower insurance rates. It was listed somewhere at the end three documents later as an adjustment. But that makes the level services budget look higher than a level service budget actually is. And I think that presents a lot of problems for us trying to really figure out what when you're trying to compare documents and compare years and compare percentage increases what an actual level services budget is because we never see that number. In in flat out numbers in a sense and and one of the things that I've struggled with throughout all of these discussions in my five years is the town. The town government side has also had to live with a 3% or a 4% increase every year in its operating budget and it's presented a level services budget within that number every year. Without need for major or any real cuts to personnel despite personnel also being the very significant part of our budget that it is to the region to the region's level services budget was over 8% increase this year. And so I I'm trying to struggle and I struggle with and I'd like your take on why can why is a region's level services budget consistently well above the three or 4% that the town. Can regularly offer basically every year when the town can do it or even when the elementary school could kind of do it this year what what is different about the region that the region can't seem to keep its level services within. What is typically known as the available or likely increase every year in operating you know in that budget number while the town and even the elementary school seems to be closer to being able to do that. So I'll start with the the the first thing which was the sort of finding the line by line I'm sorry that it wasn't posted into the into the budget documents section of the website. Again one of those things that that we haven't done we generally only do sort of two versions of that full that full budget because it takes a while to put together so when we go to make those reductions and adjustments. Those are specific oftentimes sometimes they're single lines within the budget sometimes they're multiple lines for example when we if you're looking at like. Reductions in in you know so the teaching staff ones that were were proposed is might hit three or four different budget lines you have to sort of parse those across those budget lines and and and then make sure things at the bottom and that sort of thing. So we typically do when we get to it is the the sort of first version of the budget and then the final version of the budget and that's why things like adjustments to health insurance are shown as an adjustment to the budget and I would agree with you that. That's part of why we have an adjustment section it's not considered a cut and I think to say that adjustments that reduce the costs like most of the things that are in the adjustment section are are truly. Shifts to the to the level services I agree with you that that that level services in its truest sense would would have those folded in directly and and ultimately do before we before we get. To the final final version of the budget we typically like I said when we get the final adjustments and votes from everyone we do. Take all of those adjustments and the cuts and or additions and and. Push them into the specific budget lines and so you know when we did that for fiscal 24 for example you know if you look at the health insurance line that's adjusted from from what it was you know in January 23 when we were talking about the same kind of. Estimate of cost and then real cost so we do it just doesn't happen very you know in a super timely way and I'm sorry that you couldn't couldn't find it. Anyway so to the same question why is it you know the the you know the regional budget particularly this sort of overall expenses are growing at that rate. There's a few different pieces of the puzzle so so I'll say this so as a support for the budgets one piece of it so that's a component of of the cost of you know we got 8.29% or something in our overall increase there. Some of it's like you say adjustments to to to. You know health insurance and some of those other things that actually make it not 8.29% in in real numbers. So that's a subtlety of it in timing of presentation but. So that's a piece answers a piece because of the shift in in the amount of available funds from Esther. So the current fiscal 24 budgets getting supported by about $1.1 million in Esther funds. Which means the expense side of the equation is about a million dollars higher than than would be the case. And this coming year it's it's 500,000 so there's $600,000 of that you know 8.3% that are just. The differential of Esther funding available so that's part of what drives it. I think the other things we start to see is is you know we negotiate contracts with employees. You know depending on what the colas are that makes a difference the other thing is that you know we've gotten younger as an organization. So the number of staff we have at the top step which would be just getting if you know just for those that don't know we have steps and close so if you are new hire you tend not to be at the very top step and so when you. From one year to the next 10 tend to get a cost of living increases well as a step increase. And then for staff that have been with us a while they end up at the top of the grid and so they're they're just in cost of living increases. So you know when you have a younger staff so you have fewer people at the top of of the grid you've got a higher level of inflation and pressure year over year. And I've seen that over the time I've been with the district so when I started with the district we had. Oh just shy of about 70% of our staff were at the top staff now we're probably closer to 50 and depending on which department so that puts a little more inflationary pressure on things. You know and what we can negotiate with our staff is is a factor to. And it's you know I mean it's a fair negotiation so you know we go into it we you know sort of press the point to try to you know. Make sure that the choices we're making collectively around that bargaining is is you know fully understood in other words when we negotiate. The cost of living that has a you know a cascading effect in in you know every year after that. And that's regardless of which contract we're in so we try to keep that in mind so I think you know we we've got answers one piece of the puzzle I think that we've got. We've got a younger staff you see that on the Amherst side not as much on some of that you know the the the Essar differential is smaller the the staffing differential is smaller. We've got some standalone expenses that are greater in in the region because it is a separate standing financial entity. There's ways in which you know a municipal district sort of shares some costs with the town and has some economy of scale there with with the town. I think the other thing just back to sort of how the town does some of its reductions you know staff turnover maybe a factor for them. It sometimes helps us as well I mean they may have more of that I think the other thing is is that they don't present their budget the same way so we they may be making reductions or changes. Before level services get sort of framed and I don't I don't say that as a as a as a negative approach or or critique of the town and how they function but but they may be and I don't know for certain offhand you know how they how they've done it recently but how they frame you know sort of level services. Could be different. I mean we take a snapshot in November essentially to get started. That's a pretty early snapshot and a lot of things change. They may not be taking a snapshot as early. I think there's a general higher level of stability in their staffing and you know the knowns and unknowns because you know we have a dependency on who the students are and what their needs are. And so that changes things for us a little bit creates a little more of a dynamic situation as far as staffing and and we just have a lot more people you know the town hires and has on staff you know a couple hundred we have about just you know 600 and some on across all three districts I should be clear on that but I think all of those are factors in the in the puzzle. Kathy. No I'm okay sorry it's a leftover leftover. Okay. You've gone you've touched on a lot of these other issues. Bob I do have one question I mean this is. This is because there were headlines over in Northampton if if the union would reopen the contract and take a one year freeze just on the cola. Is there any estimate on what the savings is for that. And again you can't answer that off the bat but I'm just thinking of you know if the which you just described as with more people moving up the steps. It doesn't mean people are on a freeze NASA a lot of people aren't on a freeze they're you know we progressing up a step so it's a it's kind of a how many people are at the top where this would be a genuine freeze. And I know it was a really difficult contract negotiation to get to yes. So it's it and some of this was brought up during those negotiations with the revenues are for the school chapter 70 are only going up by this much if the cost of people working there goes up by a lot more. It's going to hit positions but I just if there is a rough way of getting that number that would be useful and I don't need it now. Actually I did look at that and you're suggesting 0% cola versus what's currently in the in the contracts. I mean there's something between zero and what's in the contract there's half of it or yeah right. Broadly speaking and this is a very broad you know the difference between zero and 3% cola across is in the $500,000 range is to broadly a little higher than that but that gives you the sort of order of magnitude there. Okay. That's fine. Thanks very much. The the other thing I'll say though is I mean part of the the you know the negotiations and and the urgency understandably on the on the staff's part is you know we're all experiencing inflation you know in in recent years of you know 78% so you know there's a reason why nobody's happy about inflation because it makes us all poor and and it hits people hard and and so you know when we talk about things like our health insurance going up 9.74% yeah we as a district carry a big chunk of that cost but the individual employees who have health insurance with us also have their rates go up that same percentage and so that bites it out of out of their out of their you know cola and so that it's a difficult conundrum around that. I totally. I had a 10 year history of being on the union side so yes I completely understand that but it was just a question on on on where a stop gap to get us through a year might be that saves positions so thanks. Yeah there were we also had some questions there's some questions in here about you know kind of because Amherst is part of the four towns entity. What happens if like Amherst decides to do something but the other towns don't I know there's the the three quarter the three and the four but I mean you know if we were to you know somehow add some money and the others towns didn't add it at it would we then would that throw things off. In terms of you know in the balances and you know if there isn't an excess of that what percent gets returned to what town and all that is there is there a way to deal with that or is it just is unprecedented so you don't really have a process for it. Well actually you know a couple years ago after the fiscal year it started Amherst found itself in a in a positive circumstance with with the revenue or expenses I'm not sure which but they had additional funding available and they did a mid year appropriation to each of the departments not just not just the schools. When they did that you know the the regional schools took that as a gift and at the direction of of the finance director he said let's let's include that in the base for the moving forward. And so it kind of depends on that question about whether it starts to mess with the sort of balance of things if we do if Amherst for what a reason outside the assessment method appropriates a chunk of money to the to the district. You know sort of a core question is do you want us to count that as part of the base. In other words when we go to say oh it's a three percent increase from last year. Are we counting that gift are we not counting a gift. It's a critical question. And I think that that makes a big difference you know for for all the calculations and it and it does and it does shift things and other you know I think the other towns are considering that kind of an option as well as like you know might we do a non assessment type of appropriation. I think the critical question is when we go to do fiscal 26 do we do we consider that part of your base assessment or not. If you consider it as part of the base assessment then you know it tends to not create quite the same problems because the revenues sort of projected to be there. If it's if on the other hand is considered entirely separate from that then we've got that gap of funding to fill much like when the answer money runs out so it's there's good and bad about it. Okay well that that's a I mean we have a lot of other there's some other specifics in there but it's it's not worth going going through all of them right now I think does anyone else have some general questions about that for Doug. Okay, I don't see any. I don't have a general question but make so I don't repeat may Mandy search for the more detailed document. Doug, if you could just send us a link. I've never quite figured out where to go. When I go to the orc site for something and when I just did orc's and budget I found 2018 information so you know I know I know the difficulty of keeping up sites if you could just keep this link because I know you had told us at the four towns meeting that the total charter enrollment and what we spend on charter is in that document and I was able to go to the desi site and get charter dollars net dollars total dollars and people dollars for both our regional and elementary and I think even having taking in half that keeps us whole as a region, you know so I know that's not going to happen by September, but $2 million when we're sending 21 ish net versus 5000 when we go to a district school if we went to 10. It's suddenly a huge amount of money multiplied on the kids so I think not enough people know that information and you've done a pretty good job on talking about chapter 70, almost being flat, as opposed to growing so it's a shrinking share. But that's part of what has been the pressure because of the declining enrollment but that's a chart the charter issue is a very different issue. It's the basic funding of charters was set up in a way that it hurts. And it doesn't hurt just your most it hurts. Some of the other regional schools as well. And it, and it's completely out of our control. So I just think I, if you could send me the link, it's useful for me to have the detail and once I find the link maybe I'll be able to find it again, because I keep links. So that would be great. Thank you. Absolutely. And so, Hanneke. A mix of questions sort of, which is so there's the region budget that was passed that we are considering right now and then what I call, I'm calling for needs of more lack of a better term the guidelines budget, which is 700,000 lower. I just lack of a better term. The budget we thought we'd be looking at until the region passed something 700,000 higher. And what, if any planning is going on in your offices and with the school committee, in case the region budget is not passed. Because of budget deadlines of June 30 and all is the plan. It is there a plan. If that plan is to present the cuts as presented previously I believe when the school committee asked. Are there other places to potentially cut spending to meet the guideline budget. Your response was no. I think I don't know what what other places did you consider for potential cuts or how did you go about making those decisions of getting to their versus other things for example I, I briefly looked at this and athletics has more expenses than the revolving fund and I don't know where those expenses get paid from whether that's the general fund budget for the school district if it is was there a consideration of looking at athletics becoming revenue neutral. Instead of, you know, instead of an expense line as part of the cuts or were there other places that you looked and disregarded, or how did you go about doing that and is there a plan to revisit that, or is there in planning now potential to revisit that if the school committee budget is not adopted by four towns. So I think. So just. So the difference between sort of the conversation we had in February at the four towns meeting versus the vote, the budget that was voted at at school committee. That difference is about. I'll say exactly 941,975 dollars higher. That's producing almost 750,000. You know, if your number of that is is adjustments which are are are are, you know, changes to the actual level services budget so to your point earlier, you know, nonetheless, you know, there's about 300,000 of that, about half or half of that 750 are are are adjustments and refinements of of of estimates of cost, but the other half of it is broadly is is other reductions in other places. And so, you know, we had and have some open positions or positions that will be open as as a result of retirements in this in some places throughout the district so we looked at those. There's certain cost increases in our expenses. You know, we look through all those we do we do as we build the budget we go through sort of every line and look at sort of past history and and and there are some areas where, you know, you know, you look and and it might not have had this bit you know we have like 3,500 and then we've only spent 1000 the last three years but then, you know, there's some other line right near it that might have spending that we have, you know, sort of back and forth so there's a point where we kind of think in terms of the totality of given sections with with, you know, history as our guide in many ways, and there's a lot of those that you just, you can't zero out and, you know, like we know we have property insurance and property insurance as a whole, you know, sort of industry wide, pretty significantly increasing over the next couple of years. Recent history with our other kinds of insurance are are driving costs up so so when we really want to make a difference in in our budgets it's often driven by by people because the things that are of a more flexible nature in our in our sort of raw expenses are, you know, they're, they're much smaller component of our budget, and a number of them are not, you know, very movable so still going to eat the buildings we still got a paper electricity and other utilities so those things don't have a lot of wiggle as far as making reductions, you know, we have to buy we've you know still got to purchase some paper and whiteboard markers and that stuff you know those don't have a lot of movement and even if you even if you zeroed them out. You know you're talking in the hundreds of thousands, you know a couple hundred thousand maybe at most if you zero them out and you couldn't have school there's things some of those things you'd have to buy anyway so you can't really zero amount but but you know we looked at all those specifically athletics we have you know most of that cost is carried by the program and the fees. We haven't adjusted the fees. Over the last couple years that's on our agenda for this fall to look at those fees. Currently we carry just a few salaries in in the budget. And again that's one of those areas where over the course of pandemic we built some balance in that revolving fund to help us out. And then we'll we'll review the sort of structure of our fees for that to see what what we can do as far as generating a little more revenue there. But I think all of those are all those things that are of that sort are all under consideration. Most of them at this point are are ones we can't take action on right away and and even you know and most of ones that we have some some ability to do that is we have a will and their small differences at this point. You know I think as an organization we're going to have to look more deeply at systemic kinds of changes which are harder longer term kind of things but I think you know you just sort of look out at the coming years and this will be part of the messaging. We'll see you know barring significant changes in some revenue sources. We got to think about how we're structured differently and what that entails and and it takes a bit to think about those things that really Fundamentally shift the paradigms that we use and those those take time and energy to kind of explore and dig into and evaluate And think about what their impact are so it gets back to Bob's question earlier about sort of hey we make this change world language in seventh grade what happens three years from now. When those kids start to get to high school and want to take whatever it's like what what what are those impacts. So we definitely want to try to look at those kinds of longitudinal impacts as well when we make those those reductions. I think if I got to the other points that I wanted to make on that front but Yeah we definitely I mean we look through you know and and try to find things there's you know there are you know needs that that we have to invest in You know we have to continue to sort of work on and chip away at in much the same way we think about capital and wanting to spend regularly on capital so that we don't get too far behind there are things we do a similar way within our operating budget around you know things like evaluating curriculum. That we want to think of that in a similar way it's like oh well do we need to invest in a new curriculum for this. Does that have a A grant opportunity that allows us to and or does it have a bunch of materials that need to go with it that we're going to need to plan and budget for So I think we have to think about some of those things too as we go ahead is what what things do we need to do to stay In a in a regular cycle of improvement. That's what he I don't want to put words in your mouth. But something you just said struck me and it's part of sort of some of the questions I think we asked about planning which which it did I did I interpret what you said. Am I interpreting correctly that that that systemic logic logic to dental planning Around cuts hasn't been done and does that actually mean that the cuts that were proposed for the guidelines budget the 900,000 less than the school committee voted That those cuts were not Longitudinally thought of in terms of how those would impact budgets but not but not just budgets but the educational system and offerings going forward into the Three four five years from now where they really just what's easiest to do in the here and now instead of a truly thought out plan Over the long term knowing that this cliff has needed a plan Did am I interpreting what you just said in is what I just said sort of in the correct vein of the cuts that were proposed to the teaching staff were not Were potentially the easiest to make in the here and now without necessarily regard to a four five or six year plan and educational philosophy planning and offerings In that logitudinal sense that you thought of your spoke about a systemic strategic planning and that hasn't been done with these cuts Is that correct So I would offer it differently I think I think that that longer view is a part and parcel of all the process we take all the time so I don't think it's We've been absent of doing that at all I think however if you look at sort of churn in administration so that's a pretty critical piece when we start talking about You know building level decisions when you have change in in staffing it it's at the administrative level both at the building level and centrally That makes it harder to do them well and to have consistency across that and stability in those in those evaluations of longitudinal impact So I think it's a little bit of both so I think that that while we need to do that and continue to that and it is something we always do I think Have we done it at the depth that we'd like to have over the last year or two probably not We've been we've been on to some other topics and had some churn in some staffing that they make it difficult to do that well That's not to say it doesn't happen. I think it just it's it's difficult to do at the deepest deepest levels would be maybe the way I would phrase that So I think it's it's I agree and disagree with you simultaneously I guess is it's so what I would say okay and sorry one more quick then follow up If we were to fund the regional school budget this year with a but those Logitudinal plans need done say or even if we weren't how do we how do we guarantee that that happens like like what How do we know that what you're saying is necessary and needs to be done would actually be done Well, I think that's there's a couple things so certainly you know my expectation is if we hire a superintendent I'll go back to business office. So I'm hearing this directly from you guys and so from from my lens that's certainly a piece of the puzzle But I think it's also important for you guys to share that point of view with superintendent candidates and with a new superintendent because it's going to be critical for them to understand the context in which they operate and And get that feedback from from you know the sort of member town so I think it's a two-fold piece I mean obviously I'm here I'm hearing it I'm thinking about it have been thinking about it And and one of the advantages you know I mentioned earlier where you know there's some things that I'm still sort of carrying as a business official and you know is to acknowledge that kind of stuff and The skills we're building with some of my staff are going to be helpful for them to be able to kind of dig in and and and work on some of this. However, it's a pretty critical conversation with the buildings and those administrations and staff In concert with with with a superintendent to really think about that You know impact and and and strategic planning for multiple years. So I think sharing that with those superintendent candidates and asking those kind of questions of them are pretty critical Kathy My question Doug I feel like we've really put you on the hot seat but mine is a slightly off from the pure regional budget from my switching onto my hat of New elementary schools going to be grades K through five and the sixth grade is supposed to move up to the regional school and the there was a designation of 500 an offer of $500,000 of ARPA money to help smooth the way and what What I had understood is some of that was going to go to redoing some bathrooms. There might have been some painting some other things getting ready but those regional regions have not ready yet. So what my worry is if you're not ready yet that the money goes away and you need the money next year where's it going to come from because when the new school opens up in 2026 The plan is there isn't a sixth grade moving into it. So I just don't know where that fits in the overwhelming larger budget picture that you're facing for next year that this is a piece that's not that far down the road so the ARPA money and I just want to end with the ARPA money has not been spent yet it's been designated so it hasn't gone away if the just in my understanding is if there were a fairly concrete plan of what to do with it Before the end of December and most of it would be spent before the end of December 2026 You Be using the ARPA money so it doesn't mean it has to be spent before and since the new school is supposed to open in September 2026 that money would like so I just I'm hoping you go back and think about it. I asked the town manager and he said if they said they don't have time to use it right now or they you know they don't have a plan for it but I think the town is in on the ARPA money side has that one time money to help with that So I'll stop but that but that's both a comment and with a sense of urgency about it because I don't want to find out a year from now we're not ready. So physically Yeah, physically bring them in. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that you know the the Immer school committee is certainly very keen to to to get started on the, you know, or restarted on playing process and so I think we'll, you know, as a matter of fact one of the things I need to get done this week because they want to talk about it next Tuesday when they meet a little bit is is sort of where we sit with sixth grade move and what that's going to take and and not that we have answers to those questions but we know we have to do that. We also have to consider simultaneously the, the, the merging of three schools into two over the next couple years simultaneously with that so there's a whole host of those larger systemic planning kinds of things we need to do relative to this and and so you know if the ARPA funds are available still I mean, I mean, I mean that they haven't been spent and you know, a part of it was just with the there was a conceptually adding a million more to the Fort River School parking lot of solar panels, because we had a million, but that it turns out that it's going to turn into the contract right away so I'm just saying that that money. There's not a contract for it yet so if some of what you need for the sixth grade is capital money, you know one time. This needs to happen before they can physically move into the school, I think, making that a high priority would be a good thing because our, the town's capital budget is really tight. So, Bob has just been, it's not like there's another $500,000 to be grabbed next year. It's, it's in a deficit next year right now given the request but in any case, I just wanted to emphasize, don't forget that piece of the larger parcel and originally the thought was it might help with some of the enrollment and class size that if some of the sixth graders were taking a Spanish course we're taking this course or that course. It's a few more kids in a classroom that might make make those electives viable. And then we get back into earnestly planning for that six remove that's all part parcel of what we're going to be thinking about for sure. Thank you. Andy. Yeah, I just was going to suggest to move this long. I really appreciate the amount of time that Doug has spent and with us and this has been a very rich conversation. There are a lot of things that have been happening within the school's dog and I think that you got cast in the role and I'm so appreciative that you accepted the role of being the acting superintendent when you did. And it was just an awful time in just this huge combination of circumstances that we don't have to account because you know them and live them. I wanted to thank you for, but I was going to suggest to the chair that we try and cap the time that we're asking now of dog and see if we need to get along to public comment and including our meeting. Yeah, I was going to do that but thanks Andy. So thank you Doug, you can stay for a couple comment if you want, but you don't need to. I may step away but thank you all appreciate the questions and there's some of the same ones that I have and try to think about regularly so I appreciate them and and and and I'll look you may have sent those to me and I may have missed him. I'll get him to you Doug. We'll get him filled out and sit back to you guys as quickly as we can so you can think through your budget. Okay, absolutely. Thanks. Thank you. So I'm going to open the meeting. Please let Matt back in. Okay, sorry. Whoever's here. I'm just, I think I'm the only one who was granted the power and I'm, man, did you still see him in the audience. No, I do not maybe he left. I don't think I can bring him in then. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure if he was still here that we brought him in before public comment. Okay. Okay. I see. I see one hand and it's a phone number so I'm going to allow phone number 4135490810 to talk. Hi, could you please identify yourself and where you live just broadly speaking. Yeah, then so Connor 175 summer street in Amherst. So I've listened to the entire meeting. I have a number of comments and I'll try to go through them as quickly as I can. When I wanted just to recall to the finance committee my comments from last time about competition. The school's faith competition. The services provided by the town do not. You don't drive out of your driveway and decide well do I want to drive on the Amherst roads or the Hadley roads or the belter town roads. No, we take we have to live with what we get from the from the town. But the schools. If they don't provide the services and won't they. People go elsewhere and that has really bad social impacts. As as more of the parents side put their kids in private schools. It's very bad impact on the entire town. So, second, I just want to say about cooperation with Amherst College and UMass. That's really I think multi year at least one or two, but probably two or three year. That's a big deal that really have to fall on the new superintendent. And. And with regard to the chairs comments about wanting to understand the impact on the foreign language budget of the budget cuts. I sat through the entire public hearing that was conducted by the school committee that hearing was recorded. It was about the especially about the foreign language program were very concrete specific. And they had a lot to do with the decision of the school committee with regard to the budget. Those that meeting was recorded it is available online. And I would strongly recommend it for any member of the finance committee who wants to understand what the cuts, the impact of the cuts would have. With regard to presentations I I've looked at the 2018 finance committee booklet for the last town meeting. And I really recommend that others do the same because I think some of the presentation material regarding the regional schools. In that budget book should be being transferred to the presentations. In this in this time, both by the administration to the school committee and and to and to you all. I do think that with regard to this budget. That the finance committee needs to keep in mind that have a new superintendent and new middle school principal. And I think they those two hirings are essential for the district to function effectively and properly. And I think nothing would destroy the district's chances of actually hiring somebody than to have the kind of draconian feature cuts that that will result from a reduction in the school committee's budget. So, and, and I think in terms of capital things with regard to the town, the region. I'm at a loss to understand why and and I don't expect a response right now, but to understand why. There has not been money forthcoming to to solarize the high school parking lot and maybe the middle school parking lot. I just given the fact that it actually leads to expenditure reductions in the out years for energy. I don't understand why that why money hasn't been able to become up then set aside for that. Finally, I have questions for and maybe Doug has gone, but I think it would be useful for the finance committee, since the house budget is out. There appears to be perhaps another 100,000 that will go to the region between 75 and 100,000. And so I think that's another adjustment that has to be made. The budget will be, I think, be debated next week and all the school things I think will be settled by that time. And, and so the my question for the finance committee, which I think is something that the finance committee should really think about because the questions on many people's minds is the town reserve, the regional school reserves are 1.1 million and they're going to use, I think, five or 600,000 of that for the for the present budget for the fiscal 25 budget. The town, the municipal reserves are over 20 million and what will remain of the what would be a $740,000 deficit I think is down somewhere in the six, maybe in the 650 range at this point given the house budget. And the question is what percentage of the reserves because I don't know the actual number for the cash and other funds that are available. What is the actual percentage that the regional school budget ask above the guideline budget would be? In other words, is it, it appears as though it's in the three to four percent range. In other words, that, that one year thing that would allow a new superintendent to come in and try to write what I think has been a rudderless ship for many years would, I think, be a wise expenditure of money and with a clear understanding that what it can't, can't come back the next year with the same problem. But there are transportation and administrative issues related to the last minute promotions and elevations that happened with the prior superintendent that are going to have to be somebody new is going to have to deal with that. Thank you. Thank you very much. You need to wrap up your comments. Yeah, so I will. And I, so I would just, I would urge the, the finance committee to look at what the final number is going to be based on the house, at least on the house budget and what percentage that would be of the, the actual reserves of that are available. I think that's an important number. And I think we could have a meaningful conversation if that number were on the table. Okay, thank you. Maria, please state your name and where you live. Thank you. Maria Kapiki South Amherst. I'm going to talk about a different issue. This past fall, the finance committee and the town council held many discussions before they took votes to authorize $46 million for the library project. One of the things that came out of these meetings was a cash flow analysis that was supposed to indicate when the town would receive and spend money. Since then, a lot has happened, and a lot hasn't happened, but no public body is talking about any of it. The construction bid deadline was set originally for February 28, but this deadline has been pushed back twice so far, first to April 16, then to April 23. That's a two month delay. There have been 19 addenda so far to the initial construction documents, the most recent posted today after the subcontractor bids were received and including multiple sections being replaced in their entirety. Potential bidders have thus far submitted 97 requests for information. When the decision about borrowing was made in the fall, the schedule from the OPM showed a March 2024 construction start and August 2025 completion. In February, the OPM schedule showed a three month delay in construction projected to start in June 2024 with completion in November 2025. This latest however was produced before the move to a temporary location was pushed out to mid-May. There's been no discussion about what the financial impacts of these delays are. Subcontractor bids were also pushed back and were finally received last week. There were no bidders for the elevators, so that has to be folded into the general contractor's contract, and there was only one bidder for HVAC, fire protection and metals. For two others, electrical and roofing, there were only two bidders. In the meantime, the library has failed to meet its promised payment to the town. Less than $250,000 of the $2 million it said it would pay by January 1st was received on time, and $900,000 remains in arrears. If the remainder is not paid before the town has to borrow to pay for construction, interest on those short term borrowings will presumably be even higher than the more than three quarter of a million dollars I was estimated in November. This is a public project. And the financial implications of all these issues must be addressed publicly. But through all of these past several months to my knowledge, no one on the town council or finance committee has demanded any updates and no information has been forthcoming. The Jones Library Building Committee has met only once on January 4, more than three months ago. Multiple deadline shifts, multiple addenda, scores of RFIs, delinquent payments of almost a million dollars, and our elected representatives and town officials are completely silent. Thank you. Thank you. I believe Mika McGee. Please state your name and where you live. Hi, let me go. Oops. I'm sorry. I, Mika, run, raise your hand again. I removed the wrong, I hit the wrong button. Here we go. Gotcha. You're back. Back. Guys hear me. Yes. Hi, let me go McGee. I live in Belcher town and I'm the dean of students at the middle school. Good afternoon. Mine is not going to be long. I have a critical point in Amherst. I sit on desi's racial imbalance advisory council. We're able to look at demographic data from all over the state and determine whether schools are segregated or racially diverse. And guess what? Amherst regional schools are racially diverse. We are school system with nearly a 50% balance of white and non white students. Whether white or non white are also tremendously diverse. This diversity is why I love working in our school district. I'm proud to work here even in the midst of the storm. Although I think being racially diverse is a strength. They're probably at this point because white families are sending their children to schools elsewhere. All of this diversity creates constant tension. Time will tell how we manage conflicts. Will the school system decline as is in the case with many communities, white flight and the defunding of schools? Or will we move forward together? Which direction will we take in this extremely liberal town? The first step is funding our schools. Give us the resources to do right by our students this year. And then yes, take the school committee and superintendent to task and managing the community's tax dollars efficiently. We need three year and five year plans that line up with our strategic goals and our fiscally responsible. We have a new school committee who have demonstrated to me that they are dedicated to the best possible outcomes for our students. I'm certain they will work lockstep with our new superintendent to root out inefficiencies in the budget, develop community partnerships to build excellent educational programming and seek out grant opportunities. I'm sure the regional school committee we've ever means necessary to maintain the quality of our schools. But today, my friends, they need your help cutting the budget at this time of transition and regional leadership will be disastrous. And thank you for listening. Thank you for your comment. Thank you very much. And I apologize for throwing you out without bringing in. Thanks very much. Very easy. Mr. Connor, did you keep your hand up? Now I see one more. Vince's hand is still up, but I see one more hand went up that hadn't done any cutting him. Yes, please bring Tony in. Thank you, Tony. Please state your name and where you live. Thank you, Tony Cunningham district one. So I wasn't planning on talking but I want to echo and plus one to what Maria Kapiki said about the library. It's kind of shocking that there hasn't been a building committee meeting in over three months and none of the financial implications have been discussed about many of the things that Maria described. And also plus one to what Vince O'Connor said about the schools, and I agree it is a highly competitive market. I have a child in the middle school right now and another one in elementary in the public schools and I mean, these cuts do make me look elsewhere. The language one in particular is going to really be devastating to the middle school program and I really think the cut that was made a few years ago was devastating, making seventh grade only one semester of language so the seventh graders really don't make much progress now. And if the same thing happens to the eighth grade, they're going to be starting with level one in ninth grade, meaning they're starting at the beginning. Anything that town can do to find funding to prevent these most harmful of cuts would be much appreciated. As I mentioned at a town council meeting recently many of the increases are beyond the control of the regional school committee. They don't control the chapter 70 increase being 0.78%. They don't control health insurance going up by 9.74%. And so, making the students suffer as a result of some of these increases is really not fair and I know the town is struggling to but there was a decision made to give 10.5% of property tax levies to the capital budget. I think that decision needs to be reversed and scale that back so that we can retain the schools at the level that we expect. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. I think that's everyone is that correct Kathy. I don't see anyone I think that's still Vince's hand that didn't go down so he's already spoken. Okay. All right, well thank you. I think we'll close public comment now. Any other comments from the committee. Just just a couple Bob, you know, in terms of looking forward we had a discussion but not a resolution on how we're going to handle the budget, you know, talking to departments and one suggestion that I think Lynn sent you later was to get some comments from Paul that if we want if we want to focus on some but not all or clusters. So I've still got twice a week for all of May on my calendar, you know from original so it would be good to try to get to some clarity on the meeting schedule and who's coming in when. And if we can we repeat to Doug what Mandy asked for and then I asked for again it. I think getting more information rather than less when we're dealing with really big budget items ie regional school or elementary school. We've been getting less and less over the years compared to the very first year that I was on the council and when I go back to pre council. Some of the documents that the finance committee produced for the town meeting had information in it that I don't think they had to go do research for I think they got it during their meetings. Particularly on schools. I you know I won't. And if you know the town manager's budget document has almost nothing on the school, you know so if it doesn't come out of flow out of us. It's absent. So that's an issue. Then the comments that we heard today on the library, I've been hearing them a lot from residents on what's happening. It may not be finance, but just on a scheduling, it may be feeding this back up to the council to to get a report on it, because it's either the contingency plan and the flow of money on the library was based on a certain schedule. So I know for a fact, because of JCPC, that the major bond is not going out yet because the con just until it comes, the bids come in, we don't know whether we they're even going to come in at, at the, at the limit. So, so just, I don't think that's necessarily finance committee but feed that information up to the council president to figure out where in otherwise pack. So I think that's my main just trying to get a better handle. I mean the meeting's already booked on my calendar, but just getting a sense of how many and how we're going to focus would be great. I actually talked to Athena a little bit about this and we, I am going to try to map out, you know, kind of what we had talked about and see how it works and then we can try to figure what what where we want to focus in on in detail on the budget. I'm right next week we just have the, it's not a just but the regional school hearing, but, but if you send us something tentative and ask the comments just to come back to you pause back next week so you know we can. We can maybe firm this up a little bit more. Okay. Anybody else that I need a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to, I move to adjourn. Okay, let's just go around. Just Andy. Yes. I'm a yes. Kathy. Yes. Okay, so I have. Hi. It's unanimous. We're adjourned at 554 p.m. Thank you. Thank you everyone.