 Are in the budget policy guidelines that the council is considering. Sure. I'll start Andy can fill in. We, the finance committee has developed a first and actually second draft of the financial guidelines. We, it has been taken to the council once and is now back in the finance committee. And that did get discussed on Monday night. And the. And you can, they're posted online and you can see that. There is. At the same time, the goals for the tail manager are being developed, but those have not been discussed in a full council meeting, but they have been discussed in a committee of the whole at the. The council has been working on the GOL committee. About a week or two ago. And beyond that, we're kind of waiting for the goals and making sure that they dovetail with the guidelines. But the goal, the intention of the council is to have both of those completed. By the end of our meeting on December 19th. Andy, anything else. No, I think you've covered it pretty well. The process that we've been used for the past several years has been to have the finance committee develop draft guidelines and then send them to the council for one meeting. Not really a first reading, but comments. I think the comments were fairly limited. They were on specific areas having to do with. Decisions on certain aspects of the municipal budget. So that there was really nothing that was discussed in the council as it reviewed the guidelines. That would pertain to. School or library segments of the. Guidelines and. With maybe a teeny little bit of discussion on the athletic fields was bad. Because obviously that's the hot topic. The day anyway. But, but there was. So we're into the revision process and as Linda indicated, it's not a secret document. The draft is in the council packet for the meeting that we just had. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So open it up for general. Conversation or discussion or concerns that anybody wants to. Express. Allison. Thank you for bringing us back together for this meeting. I really appreciate it because they think. You know, the spirit of a coordinating group to have these conversations when things are difficult is. We're living it out by coming back together to talk about it. So, you know, you have a lot of meetings. So I think. You know, we've, we've mentioned this before. And we talked about it. A year ago. And I think, you know, one of the things that the school committee is, is sort of asking is. How, and maybe this is the right venue and the right. Platform for this. So we're going to talk about. What. What we need. And, and versus. Only having the conversation about what's available in terms of, in terms of the guidance and the funding. And I. I know that the schools are not unique in that. I'm sure. Friends from the, from the library board and the town council. Like a lot of the same. Issues. And I think that the, the, the straight across the board approach to guidance might be the simplest way to sort of bring it all together. But I'm hoping that we can sort of have conversations where we're. Openly sharing sort of the, the struggles or the challenges that guidance is going to present for each of our groups. So. As Peter just. Mentioned or alluded to, you know, most of our budget in the schools is salaries. And I'm thinking specifically about teachers. Are, you know, half of our budget. At least just speaking just for the Amherst schools. Is salaries for general instruction or regular instruction and special ed. The. Sorry. And so, you know, in the past years, it's been as much as 55% of our budget is just for the, you know, the compensation for folks in regular and special education. So that's not even counting all of the other staff salaries. I think, you know, when you bring in compensation and benefits and play benefits, that's over 90% of our budget. And just, you know, we've talked about sort of in FY 23. We have the budget, but our compensation isn't settled yet. We've probably been tracking in, you know, there are public communication from the regional school committee perspective. You know, just based on what the last school committee proposal was, it's already higher than a little bit higher than what's budgeted. So we don't know how much higher than our budget is that compensation is going to be just for the current fiscal year. But if you just compare to sort of the APA latest proposal, they're proposal was hundreds of thousands more than what is budgeted. So it's somewhere between, you know, a few thousand to hundreds of thousand, right, hopefully closer in the end, but we know it's going to be bigger than what we have budgeted. If we just assume total compensation for, again, just for the teachers and in general regular instruction and special ed increases by approximately the same. As what we had budgeted for the current budget year, which was let's just say around 5%. That is, that would just like sort of taking that and then assuming that all other expenses, all other compensation, as well as non-compensation related expenses goes up by only about two and a half percent, that would equate to, you know, at least a 3.9% or 4% budget requirement for the increase over what was budgeted for FY23. So I'm just describing that in terms of an order of magnitude challenge for us in the school committee to deal with a two and a half percent increase in terms of the guidance, because what we need is going to be at least 3.9%, if not more, you know, we talked about health insurance could be as much as 8% inflation that might be impacting heating, fuel or transportation costs are also going to be much more than two and a half percent. And those are areas that we have zero, if any flexibility to make cuts, right? So it's going to be a challenging year. And just to express sort of, you know, we're in contract negotiations. I think, you know, just we'd love, the school committee would love to have greater flexibility or greater ability to support the concerns that are being raised by the teachers in Paris during these contract negotiations. So it's just sort of, you know, I feel like this is the forum for us to be raising that and having that conversation so that we all have that sort of shared understanding of what the challenges the school committee will be facing with if we land at only two and a half percent guidance. Paul, you're muted if you're calling on Andy. I am calling on Andy. But he hasn't heard me. Okay. You know, I appreciate all that you've said. And they really touch on a lot of things that the finance committee thought about. And we've discussed with Sean in particular, because he's staffed to the finance committee. As we've worked through the guideline process. I think from the municipal perspective, as we look at the municipal budget. I think that the sore part, which really attracted the discussion that I was referring to about Monday's meeting when we talk briefly about the draft guidelines. It was that we look at the pressures from salary increases to health insurance. And all of the other personnel expenditures. And to just maintain current staff and programs. Matches the, you know, the increase or exceeds the increase. And that there's a lot of new programs that counselors are always thinking about. Adding to programs or entirely new programs. And so a lot of the hardest part of the discussion. Was when we started down the path of. We really can't get there to new programs. And we have to be very careful about how we do that. And we deflected a little bit on the finance side to the council guidelines. And I think that that raised concerns from counselors, but they sort of understood it. The other thing that I just wanted to mention, I'm not going to go back and read it right now, unless it becomes relevant to the discussion. But there is some sections that we've included in the draft. I think that if you're uncomfortable about there being there, then you should certainly submit. Comment to the council. So that they get. It can sort of removing them. But the. Decision, the request for this meeting. Is mentioned in the guideline draft. And there's a section. About the. APA request as you know, as you were there. We had a tremendous number of members of the bargaining unit, your bargaining unit. And two different meetings. And. Essentially what we ended up doing with the draft was to. Recognize the, that presentation was made and just say point blank that. It's not our role that. Council doesn't get involved in municipal. Bargaining and certainly doesn't get involved in school bargaining and we. Kind of. We appreciated hearing the concerns. But it's not in our ballpark to deal with them. So I'll leave it to that and my colleagues from the council. Other town. Aspects of the town. Have additions or corrections when to make that can do so, of course. Thank you. Peter. Yeah, I'll echo Allison's. Comment, but it is. I appreciate our meeting now. It would be great if we can meet more frequently than we did last year. I think it was only a couple of times, but periodically. You know, schedules permitting would be really good. And, you know, also acknowledging the early days aspect of this, you know, we, Amherst school committee hasn't had deep discussions about our budget planning yet. You know, so we don't committee as a whole doesn't have a decision or a position right. So this is all just. You know, with that kind of parenthetical caveat. So I won't repeat everything Allison said. So I think I have like two main concerns. One is the short term budget concern for FY 24. And the second is the long term for, for, for the out years, especially FY 25 and six. So for FY 24, like Allison said, it's, it's hard to see how we can, we can live within the guidance without major cuts to staff and services. That's given, given that kind of back of the napkin, we're only seeing a few of the additional increases. So, you know, that's a two and a half, four percent. Alison's, you know, guesstimate of, of, of four percent. First pass estimate on that. And then that's, that's assuming. No added compensation from the, you would just refer to it. The APA, you know, not, not meeting that additional increase. And, you know, it's, it's, it's exacerbated by, by the inflationary impacts, obviously. Like Allison mentioned transportation. And I think that, that's the, that's a complex aspect to our transportation costs. So it's like we have no discretion over that. And, you know, so our concern level is, is pretty high on that, on that level. And I understand. The, the, the principal of town council isn't there to tell the school committee how to spend its money and I would get a prospective. However, we obviously can't meet. Significant compensation asks from our union. without additional compensation right coming to our budget so it has to be. I would submit for your consideration you don't have to like have the whole conversation out here but I would would like if you could take back to the full council that. When you're talking about new initiatives and you're talking about current priorities, you know that has to be part of the conversation do we want to significantly increase the school budget. In order to meet the significant additional compensation ask, you know from from some unions, the other, the other part is. I'm pretty concerned about FY 25 and six so so right now we're using. We're using a lot of ESSER money to offset so we used hundreds of thousands last year additional for operating budget and that was so that we could as much as possible meet the guidance right like I'm sure you remember we were 50,000 over and that wasn't approved but we used as much as there and we talked about a long time about how much we should use as a responsible but we just couldn't see cutting staff and services this close to the pandemic right. FY 24 the one we're talking about now this is the last time we could do that. And then we have FY 25 and six prior to FY 27 FY 27 is, you know, cross fingers, hopefully the first one where we have the new school building. And when we get to the new school building, there will be some level of significant efficiencies and cost savings right. We're talking about two years in the middle, right they get FY 25 and six with no ESSER support prior to the school building, and what's going to happen to the school budget in those fiscal years. That's a major concern, especially that even though we're talking we still have effort ESSER for FY 24, we know we won't be able to avoid cuts to staff and services with this guidance so, you know, the second thing I would love for the town council to be able to know that your finance committee and general meetings is, you know, is, are you open to a significantly increased allocation to the schools than than what is currently budgeted, especially to get us through those great years. You know, I'm not asking you to tell us or suggest how we spend it. I'm just laying out the reality there that you know that like those resources are going to go away. And we're already behind the eight ball, based on what you know Allison is. Thank you Peter. Maybe Joe, I'm Sean can go before me. Sean. I was just going to sort of two things so I think from a staff perspective, you know, we're dealing with some of the same issues that I think Peter and Allison have described. We have two or three collective bargain agreements that aren't settled three three out of six are settled three out of six are not settled. We're, we're trying to figure out ways to fund grant, you know, things that we find it with ARPA funds similar to how the schools have proceeded with ESSER. And, and, you know, from my perspective I step back and I look and I, and I think in the past two years we funded about a million dollars worth of new things that are sort of aligned with council goals. We funded $200,000 for sustainability initiatives that was a new sort of slice out of our capital plan. The first department DEI and then we funded the four additional firefighters so we've done a lot of new stuff as a town that has aligned with the council's goals, or the past few years. So I've been, you know, very much in agreement with the budget guidelines I've been drafted so far that I call for no new things and really shoring up what we have, because we have done so much, you know, relative to if you look back prior to that. We've done so much. And so one of the things I've talked about with Paul is that if we do get new money. If state aid comes in, you know, better than expected if there's other savings that we have I think, you know, it should be put into operating budgets I think operating budgets is where it's needed. Hearing from the schools, you know, knowing our own sort of reality and that we need to fund some of these things that I've described. You know, we would, you know, I think we're going to advocate for that that it goes into operating budgets if we do get new money. And just if I can just before you go Mandy Joe just to add on. So the same pressures that you identified Allison, in terms of, you know, employee salaries the, the fixed costs for health insurance they applied to all of our budgets. The library is there when the unsettled unions is is the library's SIU unit. Their requests are much higher than you know they're there. This is a different request so. And so all those same pressures exist for all of us I think, and that's why we've always tried to handle this in an equitable way. Going forward. And I'll just add one thing, you know, the one thing that is on the, you know, on the horizon that I was at a conference today talking about but really no idea if it will help Amherst at all is the new surcharge on incomes over a million dollars. You know, it's supposed to go into education and infrastructure. But knowing what I know about the chapter 70 formula I don't have a lot of faith that it's going to result in a lot of new money for Amherst. But I think that's something we need to be, you know, advocating for now. We talked about sort of our list of things advocate for for the upcoming year and with the new governor. I think that should be definitely on the list of how that money is divvied up. If it's divvied up according to the chapter 70 formula, then I don't think we would expect to see very much. I don't know if there, maybe there's an alternative where there would be some greater benefits to Amherst for education and for infrastructure. Yeah, maybe Joe. Thanks, Sean and Paul covered some of what I was going to say which is that inflationary pressure is not school alone issue, you know, all of our employees and employee salaries are the major cost of any of the sections of the budget not just the school budget but the higher percentage in the schools but it's still a, you know, I think we heard 50 plus percent of the general government budget. Sean said at one point or that might have been of the full budget but is salaries and benefits so it's, it's, it's the driving force of all of our budgets. You know, when you're capped at two and a half percent property tax every year you can't match a 10% inflation. If you tried to match that 10% percent inflation. The resulting problem would be you have to fire people, you have to let people go that's the only way when you can only raise two and a half percent a year. If you want to give salary increases above that something has to give. So, you know, I feel for the schools, I feel for the library, I feel for Paul, right, everyone's under that same issue, but but I wanted to point out and this is where I, I'm going to ask something and, you know, the, I'm looking at those projections dollar change for the total operating side the four units is 1.7 million a little over 1.7 million for the year of which the schools are set to get over a million of that. And we just heard Allison say, and you need another two to 300,000 hundreds of thousands more potentially just to meet this year's budget, which would leave right now the town's getting a little 650,000 of that 1.7 million. The schools are getting over a million of it and the library gets 50,000 round numbers and so, you know, that 100,000 I guess I would ask the schools the hundreds of thousands you didn't give a number other than hundreds of thousands potentially. Where would you take it from what would be your recommendation to say well if we want 100,000 or $300,000. Where would you ask the council to pull it from where would you ask Paul to say, and this is where we think you should pull it from and find it. Because I'm not sure where to find it, you know that's part of the problem. We can't find it from capital. We have capital needs you heard about the athletic fields where I'm not even sure where we're going to find the money for that right. Where, where would you recommend we find it and then my next question is, if we increased in the bridge years that Peter was just asking for well we just need a bridge till we save money for the big school. Would you actually then accepted actual dollar decrease in your budget when the school opened like not just a zero, but a negative number. If that really was supposed to be a bridge that maybe we funded through, you know, free cash or something if we funded it through that would we without with your support be able to bring it back to an average of 2.5% a year. So, you know, or would you at that point say, Oh, but our budget is this number we can't we need another 2.5% like would it then suddenly be baked into the operating budget going forward. Peter. So these are all good questions I don't have satisfying answers for you I will say, I can't guarantee you I'm going to be on the school committee in 2026 so you know, in terms of what the school committees prerogative will be at that point in terms of accepting a decrease I don't know. But I mean I think you asked the right question which is the thing we're all struggling with you know there's a fixed, the operating budget for the town and schools is fixed at some point budgeting is a brutal zero sum game. And you can't just always defer to, you know, want to haves and and avoiding the painful trade offs and in a budget and so in terms of like, you know from your town council point of view or from your town manager where would where would I have you move money from in order to increase the school's budget. Like, I really don't feel it's appropriate for the school community to tell you what tell you that. But our job is to tell you, if you give us 2.5%, like, and again, this is early days, I'm not speaking for the full school committee which we've not had deep discussion but just from my point of view, if you give us 2.5%, we're going to have significant cuts to staff and services. That will be the effect of that cause. And so as the town council is discussing and debating, you know, where the money should go up and down and where should be allocated, and where should new things come on board. I mean, I mean I know from town council discussions even more new things are being discussed even more outlays. So I mean at some point, one of the uncomfortable realities that I think maybe we all need to express together in unity and maybe this is the way that we build a foundation of budgetary unity is we can't do everything. Right, we can't, we can't do everything and expect, expect there to be no pain. You know, because, because of the zero sum nature of budgets. You know, so I mean, I feel like from my school committee point of view, I just need to raise the visibility that if the schools get this, you know, level, it's going to mean this right it's going to mean decrease in staffing and services people and if it means decreases and staffing that's people losing that's, you know, and one of the key differentiators of Amherst public schools is our, is our, is our staff quality and the number of staff, and, you know, I'm sure everybody is on board with that principle. But, but that's what it's going to mean and I don't envy you on the town council having to make those, those choices because I value the DPW I value the police and fire I value the library services and all and other services and I'm not mentioning here but that's, that's the reality that I think that the town council needs to speak more openly and directly about in my point of view and I'm not, I'm not saying individual in particular but I think that needs to be like front and center in the in the budgetary discussions. I think that would help the public understand what's going on as we grapple with tight budgets in the schools and whatnot. Thank you, Peter. Alison. Yeah, I just want to build on on Peter's comment because it kind of connects back to something and Andy that you said earlier. And I share the perspective that this, you know, answering the question about where you should take the money from to send it to the schools that's, I would presume that's not my job that's not the school committee's role. And while it's true that the town council's responsibility is not to tell the school committee how to spend its budget. It is the town council's responsibility to determine and define how much money is going to be spent only that the total dollar amount that is going to be spent on schools and public education in our community. And so that absolutely is your purview. And should be part of your conversation as a, you know, particularly when you're weighing the funding of new services or new programs within within the town budget. And those are hard conversations I know, and like I said from the beginning, we're all facing those same challenges right with the with salaries and sort of the fixed constraints of the property tax increases and, and, and yet, to frequently we hear the conversation at the town council sort of focusing on the things that are within absolutely down to the, the funding level authority of the town council and sort of, you know, setting aside well we can't talk about the school budget because that that's the school committee's responsibility. And I, and, you know, as Peter was suggesting that having that conversation though on that holistic level of by saying we're going you know the guidance is two and a half percent, having that understanding and sort of public communication that that means and that the town council understands that that means that we're cutting programs and services in in our schools is, I think really important for the community to hear and to hear that you're weighing that you're weighing that and considering that as you're thinking about sort of the other puts and takes that you're considering in the budget. Other comments, Lynn. These are very tough conversations. And as much as, you know, I wish we could give everybody everything they want. And I don't want to say this in a negative way, reflecting on my colleagues on the council, but even getting the council to grasp that it's not a bottomless bucket of money is difficult. You know, there's the recent conversation we had at the field. It's like, oh, let's go out and fix it. Well, you show me where the $10 million is. It just, it lacks reality sometimes. And in my many different jobs and enormous involvement with finances over the years. I can find that the population of people in decision making positions kind of fall into two buckets. And the one bucket kind of is over here we'd like to do this all. And the other bucket in that bucket basically says, but I let these people deal with the budget there. They're the budget people. They know the budget. And so when you're listening to a council conversation where it's, I want this I want that can't we do this can't we have an increased position. Many of those conversations are coming from the bucket of people that say I want, but at the same time. And I do put myself in this group that are sitting there understanding the finances of local government of education of libraries are sitting here going, we just can't do it all. And so that's where I think we find ourselves. And, you know, we have open contracts, we've talked about all that. We have a problem with us meeting as a group on a more regular basis. And if we can find a way forward and do the kind of thing for instance we did when we got our free cash this year, of giving the schools a little more money of frankly than the height the regional school district with money. I think we want to be able to do those things. But the day we sit in council and say, we're going to give the school district X more percent than the town. We have to also be able to say, and we're going to cut this service in the town. We're going to cut this number of people in the town. And it puts us in exactly the same situation you're in, and it puts library and exactly the situation. I mean, I don't know how many times I've been quoted publicly and maybe not publicly about. That's what you're going to get for your building and that's all you're going to get. But it there isn't anymore. And for it, as they say in the House and the Senate, when they go through the budget process, if you're going to add you need to tell me where to cut. And I understand you're not going to tell us where to cut, but we have no idea where we're going to cut where we could cut to give the schools more money. And without causing the whole set of conversations to just reverberate throughout all of our institutions. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, now this is a difficult conversation because it's a difficult topic. I want to look at one comment that was that was trying to better educate the council in the community. It's hard enough to get the word out to the council it's even harder to get it out to the community. When we drafted the finance committee, the guidelines that is part of the purpose so that when you read the guideline and draft the final form. It was written to try and let people understand that there are limits and why there are limits and I think that Sean does the same thing when he makes presentations. But it is hard to get it out to the public because we're getting, you know, we get constant emails from people, we'd like you to do this would like you to do that. We just sort of have to either ignore it or just say no, try to explain it but it's not an easy topic. And the other reality is that I think that we're beginning to discover the benefits of year round government and the benefits for more direct connection between voters and the people who are making the decisions as counselors. On the other hand, we're seeing some of the downsides of that too because we're hearing all the time from people who say, Oh, well, we just need to reach out to the counselors and tell them what we think and the people are very good about in this town is thinking about how we can spend money. Peter. Yeah, yeah, so I appreciate the candor of this conversation I hope that it is a good harbinger of things to come but because I feel like maybe there is some more experience from some individual counselors. I feel like if one is making this kind of principled argument that that a budget is a zero sum game and you can't add without subtracting elsewhere with pain. It's a pretty lonely place to be if you're the only person saying that, or if you, if you feel like you're in a very small group in a larger group. So I feel like, you know, in terms of public education as well and in terms of, you know, being able to stand by our and withstand the political fire for that. It's really important for us to support each other. I find it a stunning, but refreshingly honest and very much appreciated statement to hear the town council president say, even getting the council to grasp that it's not a bottomless bucket of money is difficult and lacks reality sometimes. I would love that to be the headline of the Gazette. You know, because people need to understand that and, and I totally get what Andy is saying about that you're constantly besieged by requests for things. I would, I would say that's a very diplomatic way to put it I would say based on what I've observed from public comment and what you've dealt with in your meetings. You're constantly beset by loud and persistent demands for things that that that brazenly and knowingly ignore this reality that we're talking about that you can't add without cutting elsewhere and so I my sympathies that not all of your colleagues, you know, want to accept that reality but that that's that's what town council is going to do. You're not there to make the easy decisions of 13 and all resolutions supporting, you know, Ukraine or whatever those things are wonderful, but, but you know, ultimately you're there to make the harder decisions and and I don't maybe preaching to the choir here but but I think that has to be that has to be really and if people advocate to you and say well you know what take it from the police department. Well then, then you and others on the on the council who understand the value of the police department and why that in your view is a good or a bad idea need to speak up about but why that is right and and that's what how I think then we have a a lively or maybe more realistic conversation in town about budgetary priorities like, you know, it's it's okay to talk about hey you know what we want to pay teachers more we don't want to. We don't want to see them, you know, we don't want to lose staff as a result of the inflationary pressures going through right now. Therefore, you know I want to fund this. I think that that's a perfect conversation to have. I feel and again, I'll circle back to the ultimate principle I feel like well intentioned sincere counselors and other community advocates who want to accept this reality and do things the right way. Get shouted down by sometimes not the most appropriately expressed advocacy and and that's a difficult thing to endure because we're human beings. And you know we we get emails we get people expressing themselves a public comment and and you know we feel that. So I feel like the more that we can support each other in this principle of unity that like you have to say no to many new requests and demands in order to to retain what you have through difficult budgetary times is that I think that's one way it's one of the building blocks to having a more sustainable fiscal future for the town. Thanks Peter. And I think Sean you're going to wrap us up or Lynn just going to. So I just two quick things. One, I think the point of today was to get feedback prior to the finance committee's next before the council acts on this so that potentially it could be influence influencing the budget guidelines I think that's been accomplished. I think the other piece and you know I sort of have a vested interest in this that I think it's important to keep in the context of all this discussion is that staff have worked on a number of initiatives over the last 10 years to try to avoid the situation right now to try to find ways to save money to try to find push forward projects that that would bring in more money to the town or reduce costs. And they haven't been successful for a variety of different reasons but you know we know the school project for example if that had passed, we'd be in that new school there would be structural cost savings right now. It would be a completely different financial picture the four capital plan process would be much more clear how we would move forward. You know there's an effort around regionalization many years ago the region would have several hundreds of thousands of dollars more at its disposal each year and its budget. And that was passed so I don't bring this up because I want to rehash the past because I think it's important that it can help inform the future when we when projects are worked on that have these structural savings and, you know, it's so we avoid situations like this where there's you know we get to a period of time where there's high inflation the economy starting to tank, and there's no shortage of needs. Well, you know we've kind of, we've skipped over things that could have made this a lot easier situation than where we are right now. I just can't resist saying this. The other thing is I look at this group, and I see history. History that in many cases goes back many, many, many years different roles different plays that the problem we now have. And it's the government we chose, and that is 1213 people could rotate off a council in every two years. We don't retain any history and when you don't retain history don't retain commitments. And I bet you if I went to some of our newer counselors now, they still wouldn't necessarily understand the commitment to the four capital projects, and what that means for our budget. We don't like this group to also think about how we keep that history, and therefore those commitments in a long term basis. So we're not sitting here, as I am, since 2006, looking for a new fire station. And history is important commitments are long term. Thank you, Lynn. So I think at the, just to bring this to conclusion, we, we hear your request Peter and others for having a more frequent check in on this and I think at the appropriate time. You know, when we know better numbers that's it I don't think it makes sense just to get together to get together because there's nothing to substance talk about but when there is something of substance to talk about we. Pull this together so we'll do that. So if there's nothing else that anybody else wants to say. Thank you for joining. Have a good night. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.