 Hi, I'm Lynn Johnick, Chair of the Champlain Valley School District or CVSD Board. What follows is an overview of the FY22 CVSD budget, which begins July 1st of this year and ends June 30th of 2022. Much has changed since we last presented a budget pre-COVID, but one thing remains the same. Our dedication to providing the best education for all of our students at a reasonable cost to our community. We know that the pandemic has impacted our communities in many ways. That knowledge was forefront in the Board's mind as we developed the budget this year. While our schools may not have functioned as normal, the Board has continued to ensure that all of our students are capable of becoming citizens who can think creatively and critically, live responsibly and respectfully, learn actively and collaboratively, contribute positively to the community and pursue excellence. Supporting the implementation of that mission is one of the goals that the Board set for this budget. In addition, we also wanted all schools to meet or exceed the education quality standards, implement key initiatives such as proficiency-based learning, personalized learning, social-emotional learning, and multi-tiered systems of support. We wanted to continuously improve our budget process with a focus on increasing community input and ensuring equity and autonomy in all of our schools. Finally, we wanted to do all of that at a cost the community can support. I believe this proposed budget reflects those goals. Hello, I'm Elaine Pinkney, Superintendent of the Champlain Valley School District. I'm proud to serve the communities of Charlotte, Heinsberg, St. George, Shelburne, and Williston. The proposed budget has very few additions, but it does support the Board's and Administration's goals and vision for CVSD. It includes funding for a Director of Equity and Inclusion. It provides continued improvements to the literacy intervention framework in the form of one additional literacy interventionist. It supports the CVSD class size policy, which itself is aligned with the Vermont education quality standards. CVSD class sizes average 18 in grades K through 3 and 20 in grades 4 through 12. In a year fraught with challenges, administrators reviewed their programs and made sure that their needs were aligned with the most effective resources. These creative reallocations will have no increase to the budget. This budget assumes that our students will be back in school full-time, in-person in the fall of 2021. We'll be ready. During the summer of 2020, our teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators developed a plan that anticipated a year of hybrid, in-person, and remote learning for our students and put together a comprehensive program to ensure that all of our students, whether they were in the Virtual Learning Academy, in our hybrid model, or in-person, would be working from the same academic standards and the same social-emotional supports. They put an assessment program in place that measures our students' progress in math and literacy three times during the year. These two pieces will ensure that our recovery model is based on sound data. Our teams are currently working on expanded summer programming that will support those students who need it the most. However, I want to underscore that we're not waiting for the summer to provide additional resources to students who need them. That's happening right now. The budget you will be voting on supports these initiatives and gives our students the best chance of a seamless transition to normal school. We'll be ready. CVSD is very proud to have developed our own Virtual Learning Academy for our K-8 students. Those students who opted for this platform participate in the same curriculum and assessment programming as our in-school students. This enormous undertaking was led by Jeff Evans, CVSD Director of Learning and Innovation. We've kidded Jeff that he built an entire school system over the summer. With the collaboration of teachers and administrators, he did. 360 students, 20 teachers, and two part-time administrators make up this comprehensive program, which includes all the elements of a comprehensive school. We expect our VLA students to be back in our physical schools in the fall. We also expect a large proportion of our homeschool families to return to in-person learning. We expect our enrollment numbers to hold steady. Hello, my name is Jean Jensen and I'm the Chief Operations Officer for the Champlain Valley School District. I'm going to walk you through the numbers on this year's budget. First, let me address the impact the pandemic has had on the financial health of the district. From the beginning of the pandemic through the end of this year, we are estimating that CVSD will spend approximately $5 million in unbudgeted funds. This not only pays for PPE, plexiglass dividers, and tents, but staff to support both online learning and the greatly reduced class sizes required to meet physical distancing rules. Taxpayers should know that by aggressively taking advantage of federal grants, these additional costs will have no impact on the local tax rate. The budget being brought forward by the CVSD School Board for the 2021-22 school year is $85,285,440, a 3.5 percent increase over the current school year. The increase is driven by negotiated salaries, a 9.8 percent increase in the cost of health insurance, special education costs which are mostly offset by state revenues, and smaller increases in the cost of goods and services. After determining the amount of spending that will be required to operate the school district, the Board applies any local revenue including district reserves. This year, in recognition of the difficult economic times the community is facing, the Board has chosen to apply an unusual amount of its reserves to revenue, lowering the increase from 3.5 percent to 1 percent. This equates to a one and a half cent increase in the tax rate. A favorable revenue outlook for the state's education fund, offset by our declining consolidation incentive, results in a two cent decrease to the equalized education tax rate. Finally, the largest impact on the tax rate, the CLA. The CLA, or common level of appraisal, is the adjustment the state makes to assess property values so that they reflect current market values. Property values in our districts continue to rise and the adjustment is applied to the tax rate. The tax impact by town after application of the CLA ranges from a slight decrease to a 3.2 percent increase, the difference being due to the common level of appraisal. Finally, a farewell nod to the tax incentive the towns of CVSD received when voters agreed to consolidate into a single school district. Including the FY22 budget year, local taxpayers will have saved more than $12 million due to this incentive. After voting on the procedural articles, voters will see more familiar questions. Article 7 asks if the voters should approve the budget. Article 8 asks voters to approve the distribution from the district reserve funds to offset taxes. Article 9 asks for approval to purchase three new replacement buses. More information on these articles can be found on the district's website. Due to the pandemic, there are a few changes when it comes to voting this year. First, our annual meeting, which is usually held in person, will be done via Australian ballot on March 2. In its place, the board will hold the district informational meeting via Zoom on March 1 at 5 p.m. This informational meeting will also replace, for this year only, the presentations that are given in individual towns. If you have any questions about the budget, please visit the budget page on our website CVSDVT.org, or email the board directly at CVSDBOARD at CVSDVT.org. Thank you. There are so many people to thank in this most challenging of years. From the bus drivers who are the first point of contact for many of our students, to the teachers and support staff who welcome them each morning, either in person or virtually, to our food service workers who have provided breakfast and lunch to all of our students for the past year, to our administrators who work with all of these groups to keep everything running smoothly. Thank you. You have made a difference in the lives of our students. Thank you for supporting this budget that provides an excellent education program for our students. We know that we can't do it without you. Your support makes all the difference. Thank you.