 Rochester Stockbridge Unified School District remote public informational hearing notice and agenda for April 27th, 2021 and May 3rd, 2021. This is the May 3rd one, obviously. We'll be holding two public informational meetings and this is the second of them. The vote is tomorrow. Justine is here. Excellent. Good. First is additions or deletions to the agenda. I would like to add a board comment, which we will do right after additions or deletions. Yes, to the agenda. Is that acceptable to all our board members, Amy? Good. I can't see all the others, so I may have to hear from you, Carl. Carl, I'm good. Yep, Jenny. That's good. And Justine. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Amy, why don't you start with yours first? Oh, okay. Great. I just wanted to clarify. I had misspoke at the prior informational meeting and the research was clear that one of our endowments indeed can be used for building. So I wanted to clarify that. I misspoke last time. Very good. I have a couple of comments. I just want to make sure if anybody else has. Justine, do you have a board comment? No, thank you. Carl, do you have a board comment? I'm good for now. Jenny, do you have a board comment? I do not. Good. Thank you. Okay. Just to sort of finish up, first thing. Sorry. I forget my manners. Thank you and welcome all to all who have joined us tonight. We're very happy to have you here to they prepared our budget people have prepared a really good presentation for us tonight. We saw it last week and it was very impressed. So I hope and you'll have questions to answer. We'll get to that. The agenda is a little odd because it's designed as if we were in public session where we would talk about each article. We will get to that time where each article can be questioned. First, we're going to do our board comment. Then we're going to have a presentation about the entire budget by Amy, Tara and Jamie. And then we'll go article by article through the warning. And after each article, you will get a chance to ask questions about that specific article or anything. You know, we can get into more general questions as well about the budget at that time. So anything that's presented tonight. So just to say the agenda looks a little funny, but just so you know, it's it will get to that format where you get to comment. And finally, what I want to say too is just to make clear, I've been hearing some confusion and people were like, well, why do we vote on a budget when the schools are going to be unmerged? Well, of course, right now Stockbridge has an unmerged vote, they're going to revote on May 19. Rochester also has to vote. So the merger is not yet unmerged, but regardless, even if the merger does break up from the best information we've received is that the Department of Ed would not let the merger break up until after the next school year, it would take that amount of time so that the R side will be running the two campuses next year, regardless of the vote. I think that's very important that this isn't a frivolous budget to put out there and then the schools unmerge the two campuses unmerge. This is essential to get through our our next year regardless. Carl, you're muted. Well, exactly. I was going to say that we I want to remind everyone that assuming the Stockbridge vote, initial vote stands in the reconsideration election, assuming Rochester votes to unmerge as well, the State Board of Education still has to convene and look at the plan of how the assets will be divided, so on and so forth, basically the opposite process that we went through with the State Board of Education when we came together in the merger three years ago, four years ago or whatever. And if you recall, from that timeline, it does take a while. Once the once the votes are affirmed, the disposition of assets, the planning for the incorporation of the two districts, the electing of the of each of the town's new school board, there's a number of steps that need to happen. And so I want to support what Ethan's saying that yeah, this is not this will be a deal that will be done for the 2223 school year. If it happens. So we need a budget for next year. It's a good budget. We believe in it. They've worked hard on it. As you'll see tonight, I hope you'll ask good questions or excellent questions last week. And we hope you'll come out of this meeting fully informed. That is our goal. Finally, on board comment is this is our last meeting with two very valued board members, Jenny and Carl. And I would like to take a moment to say a few things about them both. And then I would like to open it up if anybody else would like to say in our gathering here tonight, I think it's a little unorthodox during board comment, but I just think it's an appropriate time. First, Carl, I just want to start off with you. I came into this knowing nothing really absolutely nothing about the schools let alone school board. And I just I have learned so much from you and your extensive knowledge of how this works. And not only how this board works or the meetings work, but how the school system works, how the state works. And I just, you know, I've learned so much from you. I think your your knowledge, but also your your you do so well in a crisis, my friend. I think of the tax one is the one that jumps on me where all of us were caught blindsided. And you just was like, took took it by the, you know, what is it, bull by the horns, something like that. And and just ran with it. And I so appreciate your ability to see all the pictures of that and and and pull us together and get us through it. So thank you, my friend. It's been great. As I said last time, I hope I can keep you on speed dial because there are going to be questions. We're going to come up and you're not going to be there to go, excuse me, we need to vote on this. So thank you so much. And it's been a privilege to serve with you. Jenny, I just first thing off is you've done an incredible job at the one job you were actually never supposed to do, which is keeping impeccable notes of our meetings. And perhaps you enjoyed it, perhaps it allowed you to keep sort of a frame of what you did here. But I think all of us who can appreciate who have looked over meeting notes can can just say your incredible attention to detail. But really, that's nothing compared to, for me, your strongest asset to us is your incredible attention to detail, ability to look through large documents, whether they're budgets or word documents or things like that, and see this, that, this, that, and then explain your point of view very clearly. And I just, invaluable, invaluable because I'm a, I'm a broad picture guy, I always have been, that's my nature. And to have someone like you who really pays attention to the little possibilities and brings that up. And the other part I would like to say is that there's several times in our meetings where we've all been sort of going around and around and, and you've really had the clarifying view and, and just sort of had the sort of simple, how about this? And I just, I just value that so much. And I think it's partially how you're able to sit back and sort of take in the big picture. So I very much appreciate your efforts for us. And, and thank you so much. I have, again, learned from you so much. And I've also enjoyed working on the, the annual report with you. And again, your attention to detail. So thank you very much. And now I would open it up. And this includes the public. If the public who has gathered here today would like to add in any comments, but let's start with our board first. And then if you would like to raise your hand, those of you on video, and I'll look and see if we have our own Google Meets. So, Justine, anything to add? Just, thank you for, for all your hard work. I mean, I haven't been on the board for very long, but you've both set very good examples for me. And I've learned a lot so far, different things from each of you. And I appreciate everything that you've done. So thank you. Sad to see both of you go, actually. Amy? Yeah, I agree with everything that you guys are saying. And it is very sad to see you guys go because this has been a really wonderful team. And it's been wonderful working with both of you. And you've just brought each of you have brought wonderful things to the table and are greatly appreciated. Megan, are you on at this moment? I am. I am. I just want to say thank you to both of you. You guys have just been incredible with your knowledge and your willingness to share. And there are definitely some big shoes fill. And I just hope you guys all come back for a meeting with me once in a while. See how we're doing. Just to say hi. Thank you for all that you've done. Yeah, of course, just to say hi. Maybe with a little budget help, too. But I greatly appreciate the dedication that you both have demonstrated and given so much of your time. And I just really appreciate it. Do either of you have comments, things you would like to share? And that's perfectly fine if you want to say no. Carl? Of course, I have something to say. This has been a really, I can't believe I've been doing this for 15 years. This was something that I got involved with because, you know, my kids were going to this school and there was the opportunity for me to do just this, speak up and get involved and say things. And Julie took the PTO and I took the school board. And it's been nice to work for the community. I felt really good about the things that I've done. And I at least feel like I did my part to make our little school a lot better. And I'm really, really confident that everyone going forward is going to do the same thing. Ethan, you know a lot more than you think you do. And I didn't know anything when I started, too. You live and you learn. You've got a good administration. You've got a good community. And you know, thank you to everyone that's sent me messages and dropped me a line. I really appreciate the positive support. And I'm sorry for all the people that I probably offended along the way because I'm sure I have. But thank you, everybody. It's been a wonderful time. Thank you, Carl. Jenny, do you have any comments? Yeah, I guess, first of all, I'd like to thank Carl as well for his 15 years of school board experience. I think a lot of board members have come and gone in that time. And you know, he definitely holds a lot of knowledge and all the procedures and state statues that he knows on top of his head. And I know it took a lot of time to build on that knowledge. Definitely thank him for his time. Bit of a short timer compared to Carl, but it's been a really great experience working with everyone on the board and the communities and the administration. I'm not going to say that it's easy, but it's been a really great experience. And I would encourage anyone to seek out an opportunity if it comes their way, whether it's school board or select board or PTO. I just think it's a really great learning experience for anyone. And also does bring you closer to your community. There's definitely some names on this list that I've come to know that I wouldn't know otherwise. And I just think overall, it's just a great opportunity to participate in your community. And myself, who has had one kid in the school, now has a different kid as a school as she works her way through. And it's a great way to learn the ins and outs of the school and the supervised reunion as well. I've definitely learned a lot through the process. So it's been great. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Jenny. Are there any members of our public who are on who would raise your hand if you would like to say a word or two, if not Beth Daly? I would like to thank both of them. Carl, your ability to calculate the school budget tax rate to the end before the budget is passed has always fascinated me. I couldn't even figure out how many people we were getting accounted for because of the formulas. So that minuté, and that's what you and Jenny have both brought to the board, is you know how to manage the minuté of running a school. The reports are precise and correct. And it's all there if you want to spend the time reading it because Jenny's put it there. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much, both of you. Thank you so much, Beth. Anyone else care to make a comment? Rebecca Burns. Go ahead, Rebecca. Actually, it's me here, Mother, because my computer is not working. Oh, no worries. Okay, I just want to thank Carl for his many years of service. I know we but it had sometimes Carl with the questions that I asked, but I appreciate all the information you gave to us. And Jenny, I want to thank you for serving the years that you've served. I think you've done a great job, both of you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any further comments before we move on? Okay, very good. Well, thank you both. Yeah. Huh, it's going to be different. We'll see what's ahead. All right. Moving on, I think it's time for our, is Jamie here? Jamie's here. Tara's here. And Amy, if you'd like to take it away from the presentation. Right. Ray, do you want to project? And I'll hand it over to Ms. Stetson. Oh, Lindy too. Sorry, Pauline. No worries. I was happy to let someone else take over, but gladly. So welcome to our second informational meeting for those who are joining us and, you know, are looking virtually at some people that maybe you've never met in person before. Just some introductions. There's Ethan Bowen who serves as our Rochester Stockbridge Unified District School Board Chair. And Amy Wilt serves as our Vice Chair. Jenny Austin is serving as our clerk. I believe this is her last, maybe tomorrow is her last official duties as clerk. Carl Grappi, Justine Cavacus, and Megan Payne. In terms of administration, we have our superintendent, Jamie Canarney, myself and Bonnie Bowen serve as co-principals, and then Tara Weatherall is our business manager for the Supervisor Union. So just some details. We did have an informational meeting that was left Tuesday, and then again tonight at 6.30 if you're tuning in for the second night. Thank you. This is the same material, but the different pieces would be questions if folks have other questions. It is an Australian ballot for both communities, and both town offices are open from 10 to 7 tomorrow, which is where you can vote in person if you did not request your ballot via online or by calling the town offices. So it is something that's different this vote, because we did not just mass mail out to all registered voters their ballots. So you do have to either go to the town offices tomorrow or return your absentee ballots by tomorrow to your appropriate polling place. So as you can see here, there's a sample Rochester ballot. It is the same in both communities, with the exception of what was voted on on March 3rd was that each town would vote their representation in in terms of school board representatives. So you will see two seats in Rochester and one seat open in Stockford. Other way around everybody's flipping fingers. Sorry, Stockford has two seats open and Rochester has one. And I believe in Rochester, Amy Will is available for a write-in as well as in Stockbridge for the open seat that doesn't have a candidate. Patrick Hudson, I believe, is interested in the position. This is you, Mr. Kinnerney. Thanks. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jamie Kinnerney. And the superintendent of the school is at WRBSU. And it's hard to believe this is the second budget now we're navigating together. And so some of the things that change at WRBSU, as you know, we had in general some significant issues around debt across the supervisory union and most of our member districts, not our side, but we did have a deficit that was run at the WRBSU the last two years, so what you pay part of. And so what we did back in the early fall is one, we adopted a new WRBSU policy in regards to budgeting. And what that spoke to was that we were going to go about it our work differently around zero base budgeting and not look at what do we spent money on historically. What do we need to have a highly functioning school district in operation? And I feel really confident that the administration has done a good job of going about their work that way in conjunction with the board. And what I think you have to for tomorrow is a policy statement that really speaks to making certain you have the resources needed to provide high quality support and instruction for students. Part of that was restructuring our central office for next year at the SU. We were able to redo several different admin positions. And where those reductions came from was how we were utilizing our consolidated federal grant money at the SU level. And what we've done when we get to look at the revenue page, you'll see that we were able to provide additional resources via Medicaid funds and the consolidated federal grant to our local school districts to increase supports to students and to have offsetting revenue to decrease the amount of money we needed to collect locally to fund the district. Again, we focused on fiscal responsibility throughout lens of proactive approach to student support and intervention. So we're trying to do more early intervention through something that folks hear me talk a lot about is called a multi-tiered system of supports, which is making certain every child and student in the SU gets what they need to succeed. And so that we support them to reach their greatest success. And what that's allowed us to do is to be able to keep our special education budget essentially flat for next year, which is a positive because it resulted in us not needing to increase the SU assessment on our local districts. We're putting a great deal of focus in investment in teachers and our programs. And what I mean by that is is that we're getting ready to launch a strategic professional development plan starting in August of this year that's going to focus on providing teachers additional training in mathematics in literacy and in social emotional support and learning. So that we have strategic PD so that teachers have common professional development that increases their content area knowledge so that they can better meet our students needs and differentiate to meet their students. And when I say meet our students needs, I mean all students, our highest achieving students and our students who we know need additional support and a different approach to education to reach proficiency. And then finally, I'm really proud that there's been an increase in our dependence around the three around our eight schools. And I can give you an example is that we've brought our school nurses together throughout COVID on a regular basis. We were able to have a pretty significant professional learning community that tackled our recovery effort for the WRV SU and that resulted in us being able to open up five days a week for in person learning. We were able to implement our own virtual learning academy that had our own licensed teachers and administrators from across the supervisory union, they were able to support our students across the SU K through 12 with virtual instruction if families chose that type of mode of learning due to safety concerns. And so we're able to do both of those and provide our own highly trained and licensed teachers and we would not been able to navigate that if we didn't work together. I'm so I'm very proud of those accomplishments and we look to continue to learn from each other and to really strengthen the relationship across the SU schools. Thank you. So as we start to move forward in our future and what we're really using this budget as a tool to help support our direction of learning as a unified district, we're really focusing on strengthening our universal instruction in literacy and mathematics. And what that means is not just professional development for teachers, the appropriate programming or materials they may need to support student learning as well as what they're providing for instruction, but it means all students will receive the highest quality of instruction from all our teachers in mathematics and literacy. We're also going to be using different literacy coaches as well as mathematics coach and interventionist, which will help really strengthen those skills of all our teachers, which really speaks to what Jamie was speaking about in terms of investing in our teachers and not programming. We have been building and continue to build on a robust multi-tiered system of supports for students. So that means meeting students every need or every need, excuse me, whether it's socially emotionally as well as academically through things like kinesthetic learning, outdoor education, all those opportunities that we're really trying to focus on for all our kids. And then we're improving our educational programming with this budget. We're excited to offer two new opportunities to our students and families next year, which will include outdoor education as well as world language. Some of the ways we're doing this and really focusing in is making decisions based on data. So we're focusing on developing what's known as a continuous improvement plan, how to continue to make sure our students are receiving the best education possible with this data-driven school-wide plan for both campuses that speaks to preschools through sixth grade schools for all our students. Some of the ways we're doing that is we're using a tool called STAR 360, which is an assessment given three times a year in both mathematics and literacy. And it provides great data around whether students are on grade level or different focus skills that we really need to hone in on to make sure our students are learning everything they need to for their grade level. We did want to highlight some celebrations, been a unique year with COVID, but our students on both the Rochester and Stockbridge campuses have maintained reading levels between last December pre-COVID and all the way now to January 2021. And we've seen this great rate of growth for all our students. They've closed some gaps very quickly just by returning to in-person learning. We've also seen the number of office referrals or some folks might think of that as time spent in the principal's office decreasing tremendously and actually able to celebrate more accomplishments than meeting learning expectations instead of having to think about ways for consequences of behavior. Probably the biggest highlight that's not that common statewide or nationwide is that we are able to return and did return for five days a week of in-person learning from day one for pre-K through six. And up to this point, I'm going to tack another five days on. So we're at 138 days so far and only of in-person learning and only 10 days of the school year have been virtual. We're not gone wood that we can continue in that great path. We are seeing math as an area that needs and deserves our focus. And we've already begun working through professional development, training, as well as sending some of our in-service time as staff to strengthen our universal instruction that all students receive in this area. And we'll continue this practice with coaching support throughout the 2021-2022 school year. And then we're very proud of how much time our kids spend outdoors, whether it's been in the woods or under tents or under these great trust structures that are on both campuses. And that wouldn't have been possible without community support or PTO support to be able to fund those projects. So it's been a great part of our success. And with that being said, that is one of our focal points of next year. 100% of our students pre-school through sixth grade have been able to access and learn outdoors throughout the entire year. Like I said, it can look a lot of different ways. It can be out in the woods. It could be under a tent or in a trust structure. And so in our 2021-2022 budget, we are excited to add outdoor education to our curriculum. Can I jump in real quick there? Yeah, absolutely. I just want, sorry to interrupt, I just want folks to know too, there's been, I had heard some questions in the budget about our winter wellness and how we were funding that. And I want folks to know that wellness, programming, and experiential ed is definitely a focus for us in our recovery plan efforts. And we will have plenty of federal funds to support those efforts that won't need to come out of a local budget. So I just want to add that to folks to know that we're definitely investing in ensuring that our students are engaged in programming like folks have come to readily know via winter wellness. And then, you know, in previous years, we've been able to have a lot of cross-campus events or school-wide celebrations together. And because of COVID, we haven't been able to do that, but we're still building a strong sense of community within its building and some within each of the buildings, excuse me. One of the things that we're excited about is in March, music lessons. We're able to start back up again. We've had music the entire year so far, but it's been very percussion based because of some of the restrictions because we're very excited for band and instrumental lessons to start back up. And we've also had a lot of great focus on kids showing their strengths and parents showing, you know, what they've learned virtually, kind of zooming in or Google meeting in and teaching kids different opportunities. So while we may not be open to everyone yet, we're still trying to find ways to connect with our community. And then just a few action shots for you. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to start on the 2021-2022 proposed budget. I'm going to start by a look back. So where is Rochester Stockbridge Unified District's current financial position? So in the fiscal year 2019 to 2020, the general fund started with a surplus of $500 and $1,260. The same year we ran a deficit of $40,063. And the SU, as Jamie expressed in his statements, that we also ran a deficit of $389,136, which is assessed out to each of our member districts. And our SUD's portion of that assessment was $41,638.37. So at the end of the 2019-2020 fiscal year, our SUD had a general fund surplus of $461,197. We were projecting a deficit of $7,566 at our last board meeting. So based on that, we estimated general fund surplus for 2020 to 2021 of $137,044. And I did just add in the statement here of how I get to that number. So we take the general fund balance at the end of FY20, that $461,197. We subtract from that the $142,987 that was committed to the revenue in the current fiscal year's budget. So it results in an unassigned fund balance of $318,210. We have projected using $173,600 in the FY21-22 budget. So you subtract that from the 318, and that brings us to the $144,610, less the projected deficit of the $7,566, and that brings you to the $137,044. We still have two months left of the fiscal year, so the deficit, and we continue to find savings. We are in hopes that that deficit will actually go away for the current fiscal year. So stay tuned for that at the next board meeting, and I'll bring an update for that. So one of the questions that came up at our last informational meeting was about the surplus and how it was being used. So I wanted to share the historical usage of that surplus and also the statute that I quoted at the last informational meeting. So each year, going back to the 2018-2019 budget cycle, the board has used the surplus as the way they were supposed to by using it as an offsetting revenue to reduce the tax rate, the tax collected from property taxes, and also what they received from the Ed fund. So I outlined there each year how much of that surplus was used in the revenue, which also matches up if you look at the revenue budget in your informational mailer is on page 38. So you can also see that it's the top line of each year of the revenue budget. And then I'll turn it over to Amy to talk about the changes in the budget. Okay, so what has changed in this budget? We have reduced down to just one principle. We have reduced 1.5 support staff. We have reduced intervention in our budget because it will be moved to the SU through the ESSER funding as Jamie was speaking of before. ESSER is Commentary and Secondary School Emergency Relief. It's part of the Coronavirus Aid Relief funds we receive. We are reinvesting by bringing foreign language program to our schools. We have been able to increase reading intervention locally and to increase our outdoor education. And we have been able to do all this and still save $43,199 over last year's budgets. We were able to increase the spending and these are great savings as we all know the cost of everything continues to go up on health insurance salaries and of course tuition all continue to increase. So we are very happy that we were able to find these savings. Okay, so the revenue, this chart compares the FY21 is the current year's budget we're school year that we're in right now. The proposed budget FY22 budget we'll be voting on. Just to know are the grant funds that Jamie spoke about earlier have increased in the SU $75,152 of revenue on the Medicaid and then $6,013 from other grants of revenues from the SU. Let's see. By having these additional local revenues it reduces the need to collect the Ed fund and from property taxes. One of the factors in the calculations on how we get to your per pupil spending which ultimately brings us to your tax rate is the equalized pupils. And as you can see from the chart over the last several fiscal years the equalized pupil for the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District continues to decrease and this year it went from 177.03 to 172.19. So as the equalized pupils go down that increases what your per pupil spending is. So this is just a quick snapshot of how we actually calculate your tax rate and when the next few slides will go over each of these individual sections of the tax rate. So we take your per pupil spending which is your spending or your expenditure budget minus your revenues divided by the equalized pupil. The equalized tax rate is your per pupil spending divided by the yield minus any merger incentive that is left. And your final tax rate is your equalized tax rate divided by the common level of appraisal and that's in each individual town that will reflect what your projected tax rate is on your property tax bill. Budget changes from the current year to the proposed year as you can see on this chart in front of us. We have reduced spending by $43,198. We have increased the revenue by $1,246. So this reduces the end fund spending which also is your taxes. We have had a decrease in the equalized pupils of the reduction of $4.4. But as you can see we are still able to reduce the per pupil spending over the last year. You can't hear me. I'm just going to keep talking. So the yield and how that impacts your tax rate. Throughout the last informational meeting and several of the prior board meetings you may have heard us discussing the changes in the yield. The yield is set for us by the Vermont Department of Taxes. We get notification in December of what the projected yield is going to be and that's the yield that we use to start building the budgets. And the projection for next year was extremely low given the expected outcome of the education fund and the revenues received by the state. So the initial yield that we received in December was that 10,763 that you see on the second row of the chart. The current yield was 10,998. And in January we received notification that the ed fund was looking better and the revenue projections for the state were better than they anticipated. So they had given us a yield to use of $11,385. And there's currently a bill in the house that if it goes through that will be the finalized tax rate and that's $11,317. But that bill has not been approved as of this meeting still. So as you can see the fluctuation in the yield has an impact of about 10 cents depending on which one we ended up having to use. So again just to review the formula we take your equalized tax rate and to get your equalized tax rate we take the per pupil spending and we divide that by the yield. So the actual tax calculations. So this is the 2020-2021 as it compares to the 2021-2022 proposed budget. We start right up at the top at your per pupil spending. So in the current fiscal year the per pupil spending was the $18,755.83 and our projected per pupil spending for the budget for next year is $18,740.04 a change of $15.49. The yield using the $11,385 as a change of $387 brings us to a preliminary tax rate of 1.6460 which is a reduction of 0.0594 from the current tax rate. The merger incentive went down from four cents in the current fiscal year to two cents. So the equalized tax rate is 1.6260 which is a reduction of 0.0394 over the current equalized tax rate. So the next step on calculating the tax rate per town again is the individual town's common level of appraisal. We take that equalized tax rate from the prior page and we divide that by each town's individual CLA. So the current CLA in Rochester as you can see from the first column on the first side of the chart is the 109.89 percent which resulted in a tax rate of 1.5155 for Rochester. The projected CLA for 2022's fiscal year is that 102.98 so that reduction has an impact on the tax rate and will increase the tax rate to that 1.5790. Now on the second side of the chart we have the Stockbridge CLA is currently 105.31 percent which results in a tax rate of 1.5814 and the next year's CLA is 101.36 so that reduction again is having a negative impact on the tax rate which would be 1.6042. This page here shows the historical change in the CLA and as you can see it's fluctuated up and down over the years and the CLA again that's based on what your property values are versus what your properties sell for in your towns and that is set by the state and reviewed by your listers. So tax impact so what is each section of the budget impact the tax rate? So the net spending changes so that was the reduction in the expenditure budget would have been a savings for each of the individual towns of just over four cents. The equalized pupil decrease reduces that savings to it's still just over four cents. The incentive phase out is a reduction of two cents. The yield with the change there reduces the savings to the 0.0358 and then your CLA as you can see almost had a 10 cent impact on Rochester and a six cent impact in Stockbridge. So the projected total change for Rochester is an increase of 0.0635 and for Stockbridge is that 0.02288 so six cents and two cents if you round up. So next we move into each of the individual articles on the warning. Okay. Want me to take it Ethan? Yeah I will read I'll read out each article just so and then we can ask if there's any questions on them. Obviously if we're in person we would move the article and then vote on it but obviously this is just an informational meeting just to clarify that. All right so article four to fix the salaries in the amount of two thousand dollars for board chair thirteen one thousand three hundred and fifty each for vice chair and clerk one thousand one hundred for all other members for the school district officers for the twenty two thousand twenty one two thousand twenty two school year. Any questions on that article and those of you don't know the best way to do this is to that little hand icon at the bottom of your screen so let's see if we have any we have one phone call 294 um and because you have just one phone call in there if you need to have a question please just speak up. Okay being no questions on that article we'll move on article five to fix the salary and the amount of seven hundred fifty dollars for the school district treasurer for the two thousand twenty one two thousand twenty two year school year. Any questions on that article okay they're being none we'll move on article six shall the voters authorize the school board to borrow money by issuance of notes not in excess of anticipated resume venue for the fiscal year July 1 2021 through June 30th 2022. And I'd just like to add to this Ethan if I may absolutely this article is specific to the tax anticipation note that we get for each district each year and what this does it allows funds for the district to cover their payroll and their expenditures until the revenue is received from the education fund and property taxes which are divided out quarterly or sorry three payments from the ed fund and then based on how each individual town pays the district their property taxes so this is needed to help cover those fees and expenses and payroll. Carl you'd like to have a comment? Uh yeah I was just going to say that both article uh six as well as article five and article four are unchanged from past approved budgets um these are the while these are things that that we formally have to go through each year these are not changes from year to year the board salaries the treasurer salary and the approval of tax anticipation notes are things that are have been consistent over the last few years or consistent since we've merged. So thank you Carl. Any other questions about these articles so far? Okay article seven. Shall the voters of the school district approve the school board to expend four million three hundred and twenty eight thousand seven hundred and fifty two dollars which is the amount the school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year it is estimated that this proposed budget if approved will result in education spending of eighteen thousand seven hundred and forty dollars and four cents per equalized pupil this projected spending per equalized pupil is point oh eight percent lower than spending for the current year. Are there any questions on this article? Rebecca please I'm sorry what is your name? I see Rebecca is the computer name and uh what is your name? Go ahead please. Are you muted? Unmuted? So we can hear your question. Sorry about that. Oh yeah got you good I'm sorry your your name just so okay Kathy. Kathy Burns, K-A-T-H-E-B-U-R-N-S. Anyways I have a couple questions about the outdoor program. Have you looked at Bethel's program for their elementary kids? They have a great program. We just had a pre we just had a presentation by them at I think it was two board meetings ago maybe last board meeting in in in uh April so yeah we were very excited by what they had to present. Okay and also the the person that you're going to have do this outdoor program are they trained? Have you heard somebody yet? Lendi you want to speak to that? Um currently the plan for the person who does who is planning to fill that spot she does have an outdoor education background I do believe she will have to work on like some retraining because it's been a couple years since she's done it if that makes sense. Okay I have one more question how many days a week are we going to have the foreign language teacher at Stockbridge? Yep the um position is point here so we're working on a rotation where uh between the foreign language person or road languages person and um art where one school would one campus would get it for like six weeks for example and while the other campus gets it for six weeks and then they would rotate so each campus would end up with an equal amount of time about 12 weeks or more of the year that's a rough estimate and Lendi within that week how often would would the students it would be for 40 to 45 minutes a day so each class would get it 45 or one time a week 45 one time okay yep okay thank you thank you Kathy uh for the questions on article seven anybody else raise your hand if you have any other questions you can also talk about any of the presentation at this time this being the last um uh any general questions about the budget anything from within side your bulletin as well if you have any questions from information there Jamie go ahead I just wanted to add uh Rebecca when I talked about the SU working more closely together the outdoor educators is a group that we're looking to pull together on a regular basis and next year school calendar does provide for uh two half days of PD each month and that would be one of those professional learning communities that will look to pull together and coordinate so that they're sharing um their expertise with each other um and I'd just like to ask a question I think it sort of follows up on Kathy's a bit um and I know it's a question Charity's written as raised before and Lendi if you could speak to it what advantages about your education to strengthening educational um the educational experience and the educational results yeah gladly um say some some advantages I there's a lot more out there that I'm probably not going to hit all of them because I'm learning a lot about it as well um advantages are that it's engaging and it's kind of kinesthetic for those learners that want to learn hands on and in the moment um we have a lot of classrooms currently that use it some form of it from outdoors every day for extended period of time learning survival skills learning science in the woods writing about nature as they see it to uh groups that do things like first Fridays where they're out for a certain period of time and they've designed a shelter say in math class and they have to figure out how to now build it using the measurements they learned in math class or created in math class and if that's really possible what looks good on paper may not come out when you start the building process um and a wide variety of survival skills is great for natural sciences and our as well as um environmental science and just learning about our climate as well and just a few of the highlights if I if I may share a highly unscientific survey I've been doing of asking general people about the town when you were in elementary school would you have really liked to go outside there has been a resounding yes yes my brother who is a farmer particularly would have loved to have been outside working and learning um and all that's so good thank you further questions about um anything as I say anything in the bulletin anything in uh we've we've in the presentation tonight um we're happy to answer any questions you have so just raise your little hand icon to raise or if um our one phone caller has um a question and in this moment I will will just repeat that we do need a budget for next year because um regardless of the result of the of the merger unmerged votes coming up by the time all that process is played out we will be still our side will still be teaching even if we the final vote is to unmerge we'll be teaching in and in controlling the two campuses in Rochester and Stockbridge for at least one more year before the process is would be allowed to split off so just you know we need a budget for next year and we think this is a good one um there being no further I will uh entertain a motion to adjourn uh I would love to make uh my last motion uh to be a motion to adjourn very good Carl we have a motion to adjourn Jenny would you like to second just to I don't second that very good all in favor signify by saying aye thank you everybody very well Jenny thank you thank you all thank you all the administration everybody good work good night