 Thank you, everyone. I think we can start the meeting of the monthly Roxbury Board of School Directors at 634. We've got, Amanda's going to be a little late, but you should get your time for the legislative discussion. It's Kristen online. Kristen's online etiquette cannot make it unfortunately. And very pleased to have members from the delegation that represents monthly Roxbury and Washington County for a discussion in a few minutes. Once we go through some initial business. So first order is public comment. Anyone in the room is there anyone online who wishes to make public comment, please either raise your your hands with the raise hand function or if you want you can just unmute yourself and let yourself be known. Now excellent. Consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Any discussion. All those in favor. Any opposed. Great consent agenda passes. Great. So we'll move on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Senator Purslick, Representative Hooper, Senator Cummings. I don't think we might have a couple more joining for join us for a discussion. Yeah, obviously this last couple of years have been extraordinary ones for all school districts. But with no exception to that. We've definitely appreciated the support the legislature has gotten us. And in some ways, you know, I think we're in a more fortunate position. And we thought we would be a lot of the financial hardships that that many thought would come to pass. And I'm not at if anything we've we've actually seen unanticipated particularly federal money. But even the money from the state has been strong and certainly much stronger than predicted so thanks to the efforts that everyone played in making that happen and continue to make that happen. And in other ways, this has been more challenging than we thought the the virus has certainly lingered lingered with us longer than than anticipated. It seems to do good jobs of ducking and weaving. Every time we feel we've we've passed a milestone. I know just talking to administrators and teachers and people around the school districts that in some ways this this year has been a lot harder than last year. Because of a variety of factors, I think burnout fatigue and, and the lack of predictability and also the lack of a seeming ended site has have been. Yeah, some of the factors that have really I think started to to wear people out in ways that that weren't happening before. And you know with that, you know, we have been very fortunate to have our school, our kids in schools, most days. I know some kids are really suffering, but I think because we've been able to be in school we've been able to limit the number of kids. You know who are highly impacted by this, not to say that there are impacts you really need to deal with but we have been able and a lot of it's been through the heroic efforts of our, our educators and the leaders of our educators. We have been able to navigate the situation, probably about as well as possible. Yeah, that said, I think everyone is looking for some relief and an upturn and an ended site. And we really wanted to have a discussion about some of the things in this legislature that we as district should be watching for share some ideas with you. And hopefully be prepared to kind of work together as you move through this legislative session to both get us out of coven. Hopefully in better shape than we came into it. And also just talk about some other issues that I know are out there. Two of which I know are on the agenda one is the equalize people changes to how people are calculated. And we should be thinking about in that regard. And then, I think, I don't want to put right on the spot but I know Brett could well explain some of the challenges we've had as can Kristen with some of the some of the laws around how districts can go about voting we've got a couple issues where in between the two towns approach have had I think unanticipated consequences on mail and ballot voting for instance and the ability of non citizen residents to vote so without why don't I handed over to the senators and representative to introduce themselves and just have the floor to, you know, talk about the perspective from from the State House and some of the things that that you've been seen and that you feel we should, we should have our discussion and we can just open it up to the board for comments and Q amp a. Yeah, either go either do a popcorn or I can I can call on you why do you want to start Senator coming since it looks like you're ready to go. Okay. I'm in Cummings, and I represent Washington County and the Vermont Senate I chair the finance committee. This deals with property taxes we deal with taxes. My committee has just started we've been assigned in the waiting study to look at the weights to look at whether or not we should do a wait or I think they're calling them an equity payment, more of a grant. Senator perchlet because he was on the committee so I have two members of finance that were also on the summer study committee. So we're going to have to decide if we're going to do grants weights. If we're a hybrid some grants some weights, we're going to have to develop a transition because we know there will be some big winners and some big losers as we transition out. And into what should be a system that does reflect the actual cost of educating students and students, particularly that require a little more to educate them. So my committee to follow the example of the summer task force and that is, we aren't looking at runs. So I don't know who the real winners and losers are in my county. We're going to try and work to find a system that is equitable that is just that is fair. And some of this will probably gas but we're going to try and do that and then transition in so there is no major shock, financial shock to the schools. You've probably heard a year and a half ago. We were looking at $150 million deficit in the Ed fund when this whole culvert's hit and the everything shut down. We're now looking at around $100 million surplus. The governor has a couple of proposals for that including giving half of it back in rebates. I think my concern and my committee's concern is making sure that no matter what we do. There's adequate funding there because once we get out two years, the growth rate, I think three years out is predicted to be and I'm looking at representative who be here like 0.8%. And then there's inflation and when the feds start playing with interest rates, there's always the danger that will cool it too fast and go into recession. So that potential is hanging out there and we want to make sure that the money is there to fund schools in the future. I also realized that we have a lot of facilities needs, and we haven't put any money into that in well over a decade. So, we've got a lot of things we're looking at that are impacting schools. Thank you. I know who are the next center person. And just want to also thank you for your service on the board. I'm Andrew Perks like representing Washington County. And I'm on the Education Committee and we hear a lot about how stressed and difficult it is for students, parents, teachers, administrators and school board members. So just really want to shout out appreciation for your work and in time that you're spending on helping our schools in this difficult time to answer the question about things that I thought the school should be aware of probably in an order of least important to most important but one I'm on the Transportation and Education Committee and this year I'm on a third committee I'm on the apportionment which is like the redistricting of the legislative lines. I look at for school boards to look at those maps they send it out to the board of civil authorities, I haven't really looked at the, the house map all that closely to see if it would impact but I think if, if, if they actually adopted the majority reported map it would change your disc, you know, the towns that make up you 32. That's you 32. But Roxbury and Montpelier would change a little bit on on who they are so it's just something to think about. The weighting study center coming talked about how they're taking there being the finance committee is going to really take the weights and there's a whole bunch of different weights, or the equity payments, which could be just dollars to the schools directly for those issues of poverty and morality, size and grades. Superintendent bone steel has been very helpful in that process and coming into the summer committee and talking and also to the Education Committee, but in education we're talking about English as a second language, and superintendent bone steel to come in specifically and talked about the issues that Montpelier Roxbury having with with English as a second language or English language learners. So, we're going to be taking that on and the task force recommendation was to do that as a grant and not as weights, which some school districts and people in the state don't like so it'd be interested to hear how the Montpelier Roxbury district is going to think about a grant for English language learners instead of instead of the weights. And we just got a new estimate of what that would be but the proposal coming out of the task force was a base grant of $25,000 plus $5,000 for each additional ELL students at the school head. And with Act 173 special education is supposed to be finally put into place in July but there's people talking about it if the weights and that the funding around weights and ELL aren't done. And then we should also postpone Act 173 and I'm hearing from some other special educators about maybe postponing some of the other rules that are that would that are to go in place in July. So if you have any comments about Act 173 and special education I'd be interested to hear those as well. The thing that I would say is the thing that Senator Cummings mentioned at the end of her talk which was the school structures, which we did last year big effort to try to do an assessment and an inventory of all school buildings in the entire school and we're going to get a dollar number at some point during the session. We know it's going to be a huge number of the deferred maintenance that we have but it's something that Secretary French is really interested in. So we're working with the superintendent association and others about how we can really help schools with their infrastructure with their facilities because the state hasn't been doing any aid for construction for many years now. And the HVAC work that we started last year and continuing that with some specifically around renewable and clean heating for schools. Something I'm particularly interested in. So that's, that's what I've been working on and what I think would impact the mock another school. Representative Hooper. Hi. So I'm Mary Hooper I represent Montpelier. I am not sitting where I usually do in my office because, you know, in our house, because it's cold. And if my screen is too weird, I can go somewhere else like and say I'm whispering a bit. I'm by the fire next to my dog so tell me if I should move. You're good. It's okay. Thanks. Yeah. So I'm the chair of the house appropriations committee. So we we handle the other side of the ledger from and she she's we just received the governor's budget proposal for FY 23 and and mentioned that there are tax proposals within within his budget that that's how it gets presented to us. You know, significantly he's suggesting that half of the surplus be returned to property taxpayers. I agree with Ann about the deep concern about the out years. Just as you mentioned Jim. You know we're seeing this extraordinary largesse of the federal government and its stimulative effects throughout the economy. It's been pretty incredible what we're seeing. Now, and next year, the budget project, I mean the revenue projections are that we will start leveling off and return to that very constrained growth that does not keep up with the inflation the inflationary pressures on the budget. So while we're in a hot time right now where I'm just deeply concerned about making really smart investments now that pay off but also not making commitments that we can't live up to in a year or two when when revenues start start to level off. And one of the other significant after the waiting study work, one of the others really significant efforts of the summer was the pension task force that obviously deeply affects the teachers as well as state employees and it's it's wonderful to see that there's an agreement between, you know, the public public employees and, and, and others about what the solution is. I, I mentioned that that in the terms of we're setting, we are putting $200 million of general fund dollars into the pension puzzle the question there. And what is it exciting about that from a budget standpoint is that it pre funds the retirement accounts of both the teachers and the state employees and puts us in the way of saving over time. The $8 billion liability there is within those those the the two systems and kind of the four obligations within in the two systems. And that $8 billion liability, it buys down about $2 billion worth of liability so it's a really significant investment, and I have just really deep gratitude to the, the state that NEA the DNA as well as the teacher as the state employees for coming and helping folks solve that problem. I think it's going to really make a difference. I'm just like all of you. I am just really deeply deeply concerned about the well being of the whole school community, but, but particularly kids and you know the supports that are there for them. I've asked the department I asked the agency of human services which was in our committee today to talk I told them that I wanted mental health to report to us on success beyond six and the funding there and you know the resources that are available for you all in at the school level so I'd love to know what you're thinking about there. There's not I couldn't see any particular funding in the governor's budget proposal around that there is a good deal of talk as you've probably been hearing about CTE and I'd be I'm really curious about Montpelier Roxbury's relationship with the CTE that serves this area. So if you wanted to that's kind of on my list to understand. There's some nice funding for after school programs in the governor's proposal. And again I'd like to understand how you all are thinking about that. We didn't do anything in the budget adjustment for personal protective equipment for schools because we couldn't figure out how to get it to you quickly enough. I don't know if that's an issue. Again for our school district but if you have. I love to think about that because we've certainly heard about that from other other districts. That's the I'm sure there's a much longer list but that's what I jotted down. And I just I just wanted to end by saying how much I admire the work of everybody in the district is just extraordinary what you're doing. And you know I thank you. Thank you for keeping our kids safe try and teaching them and just marching through this really rough time. It's amazing and I think you all know that we that the legislature feels really free on calling on the superintendent Bonsteele to come up and advise us and we really appreciate you lending her to us. We're helping us understand the issues you all are facing. So thanks looking forward to the conversation. Great thank you yes and I know I know it would be. The enjoys going up there. And our buddies. So I'll just open it up to the board. Oh great. Well let's give Senator Polina a chance to go. Just to let you know Senator Polina we the others on the phone have just kind of given an overview of some of the things on their radar and then a few of them have asked for you know things they'd like us to comment on so I'll give the same opportunity to you. Well thanks for having us hope it thanks have a good evening. I serve on the advice chair of the government operations committee and there's a couple of things that relevant things that we're working on. We're the committee that's going to first approve the pension recommendations that we've been working hard to understand what's in the pension task force recommendations. We had a public hearing actually last night and we've been hearing from the both labor unions, as well as the state treasurer and others about the pension issue for the last couple of months actually, but a lot for the last couple of weeks we last year we worked on making sure that the pension task force was balanced in its representation of labor folks as well as administration folks and we made sure that the NEA and the BSEA were well represented on the task force. We made a big difference they started out with the need to build a lot of trust and task force which took a while to do. But from what we can tell right now, the both the labor unions as well as this treasure feel that what we've they what they've come up with is a really good compromise and it is a compromise but it's something that will protect the pension system. Without overburdening teachers or state employees in the short term and so we're beginning to take a look at that what's exactly in the proposal we don't have the bill yet that would codify with what the recommendations include but we're hoping to have that next week. We also government operations we spend a lot of time trying to make it easy for towns for towns to function in a way that is safe for function safely but still be able to function adequately. We've had some things going on in terms of mail out ballots and monthly rocks very district, which are, which are permitted to do under the law now, but only if every town agrees to make it happen and I know there's been some issues around, whether it's not the town of rock story was going to go ahead with allowing it to happen but we've made it possible for other municipal bodies to like do remote totally remote meetings and whatnot and we're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to cast their ballots as well. What I would mention is that, like the others that have spoken I can't really begin to imagine kind of pressure that you folks are under being in school all day or not depending on what happens in your classroom. I mean the work of teaching is difficult enough and to do it during a pandemic is just unfathomable for most of us to begin to understand so there's things that we can do. If we could have easier we would certainly be willing to take that on we were limited in what we can do because we don't, there's no state of emergency anymore. So we've tried to talk about mask mandates and other things like that but it's, we run into a lot of roadblocks, in terms of moving those things forward but I mean I really have a lot of respect for the work that schools are doing these days and it just seems like such a difficult situation to be and I really want to put you all going to. So I mostly want to hear what you folks have to say in terms of this evening but in terms of the pension debate we're moving forward on that. In terms of trying to make it possible for towns to function adequately town municipal bodies to function adequately remotely working on that. And we look we've opened to ways to try to make it easier for schools to operate as well. I look forward to the conversation. Thank you, Senator. Let's open it to the board with other questions or comments or responses. I have a little question. Yep. Thanks everybody for joining Andrew Stein here. My question pertains to the waiting study because I was referenced several times and then well not just the waiting study but the school equity funding proposals that are on the table because at this point, we had this waiting study, and then we had this task force and there's several different proposals on the table. I think it would be possible to, and you don't have to answer this now but I think it would be helpful to school boards not just our school board to have an understanding of the different proposals that are out there. And in the past, the joint fiscal office Mark Peralta would every once in a while when there was a big education funding proposal would, I think it was through the BSBA, if I'm not mistaken, would provide school boards with an overview of a situation where it was very balanced like these are the these are the different options that are on the table, and this is how it would impact you. And sometimes this might be after the fact it might be, here's what was decided during the legislative session, and this is how it impacts you. And this happened at least a couple times that I can remember. I feel like something of that nature would be really helpful to school boards to navigate this because we don't have the resources at our disposal, necessarily to understand all the different options that are out there, or if there is a resource and you can direct us to it. That would be helpful. Okay. I see representative Hooper and some of their purchase of their hands up. Yeah. Thank you. I remember when Mark did that presentation at what was then the Montpelier School Board and think he may have done it partly because he was then a resident of Montpelier and it was kind of doing his civic duty. I can certainly take the request back to JFO, but what I have to say is on the finance side of things, which is and side of the, of the ledger. They are down to staff people were really sad because Mark chose to retire, and he was, he was the rock star of this issue. So it may be hard for JFO to provide that that I hear you and we can, we can have a chat about how to provide that information information out that to help help districts with these questions. Exactly. Yeah, I don't know folks have read the report the recommendation of the task force does just lay out there's really two options to two different ways of funding it. And in the back of the report there are tables where you can look up your school district and see how the different the two proposals would impact based on past years funding so there's lots of caveats in there but it gives you an idea of the tax impact and it gives you a tax increase for the Montpelier Roxbury district, either way, either proposal that you go but to understand how that is. I totally agree and Brad James could maybe do it but I'm sure Brad doesn't want to go around to all all the schools in the state so maybe we should talk about how the best way to give that resource because I'm sure it would be great to understand school finances and how school boards put together budgets to walk you through the impacts in the charts and if you do want to look at those charts definitely look at on your computer because the printout is like tiny and even on the computer it's kind of hard to blow up so hopefully soon we'll be able to like provide some Excel spreadsheets that you can look at and and compare the different options but that's kind of the work that we're in center coming committee mainly is going to be going through to try to figure out what the impacts will be and I actually thought this would start in the house because you have two representatives in the house and they represent you it's starting in the Senate. And in the Senate, everybody has schools that are winners and losers so in general. So, we're starting and again we're going to not look at those individual spreadsheets until the end we're going to have a look at everything that the task force did. You know, in, in recommendations they've changed the weights they've put more weights in. There's a weight now for middle school where it used to just be high school now they've put middle school in. There's weights for ruralness probably won't hit Montpelier, but Roxbury definitely will be impacted by how rural they are. We're going to look at all of it, and we're going to see if we can, you know, come up with a plan. This week, we had Brad James go through and explain how the weights work now. The weights have been there since the foundation formula. I I've never looked at them I don't know that anyone has they just were and school boards accepted them, and they were, and this is the first really heavy lift we've had so we're we're starting at ground zero. It was enlightening and humbling to watch Brad James walk us through how weights now can cancel each other out. So we're going to be working through that. Then we'll do the runs. And after we make a decision it's going to go to the house. And they're going to be I'm sure much more focused on the impact locally, but we're going to. And then we're going to do a transition in so that there won't be any, you know, one year huge impact. And this all interplays its taxation with tax rates and the common level of appraisal and your grand lists and so much is changing right now we're trying to get a handle on it before making any commitments. My commitment is to make sure you're adequately funded long run, and I'm concerned about, I didn't see anything in the governor's budget, either, about how we're going to come out of this pandemic. And be, you know, with exhausted teachers exhausted, you know, management exhausted school employees and exhausted discouraged children I have a grandson, who was in kindergarten when this started. He's not in my appeal your buddy is in Vermont. He's now halfway through second grade and he's got six months of any continuous school experience under his belt. He was quarantined for five weeks this fall, and he's discouraged. And he is not alone. And we're going to have to, we're going to have to think some money and some resources into that and we know we have a mental health system that is imploding was before this, and it's worse now. We, you know, when we say anything we're told well you have ESSER funds, but you have those and we don't know what they are aware they're being spent across the state so that's going to be a challenge and as Mary said, Mark Perrault retired. We've got two new people and the long time maybe six years, seven years of, I don't think Graham's been with us that much who's been doing our revenue forecasting is trying to pick up the slack in the property, the education fund forecasting so. And then COVID has hit so we're, we're limping along, I think like all of you. And we're just trying to do the best but there are a lot of parts and we're all under resourced. We're all legislating. I'll have to see how Mary likes combination. Other than there was a lot of feedback and joint meetings today. But it's, it is more difficult and just stay in touch. As you hear things check them out with us. Email me. I'll run it down. Email any of us and we'll do what we can to run the questions down but right now, I'm, I'm in kindergarten and just start start learning about this whole system that's been there forever and then, once we figure out the present system, then we have to start figuring out where we're going to go from here. So that's all I can tell you at this point. One thing that you could do is wave five days from the mandatory 70175 day school year. Last week, Roxbury Village School was closed. We didn't have enough staff to run it safely the following day of the entire district closed because there wasn't enough staff to take care of our kids. That could happen at any time. Every day there are teachers in the classroom next door, covering for somebody who's missing, creating a lack of continuity in education for our kids and outrageous experiences for our teachers where we're losing staff. We're having a hard time with staffing I'm just going to speak on behalf of living there that's all I can say about that. One of the keys that I want to speak to act 46 requires that towns, behave in the exact same way. And what that means is that a extreme minority in Roxbury can stop the will of Montpelier voters. They have to give the rights of non-citizens to vote. They passed that legislation. It was approved by the legislature. Roxbury has not gone before Roxbury. It's anti-democratic basically. You have a town that's voting. The will of Montpelier rights is being essentially vetoed by an extreme minority in Roxbury. And I really want our towns to get along. We're very different and not being able to respect the will of either town doesn't help us develop the kind of relationships that are going to help us provide the best opportunities for our kids. Those are my points. Do you want to go with the chance to respond to Rhett? Sure. Looks like Senator Perch like I'm just going to go across the screen and put their hand up first. Yeah, and maybe Anthony might have something on the citizen voting because they worked on that bill in this committee but you might have to pass a new charter or something. I hear you on that issue. On the 175 days in the Education Committee we've had Secretary French in a couple of times we've talked to him about this. He's reluctant to just automatically just switch it to 170, 165 days for all schools across the board but he seemed very open to waving those days that were closed when there was not enough staff. And he gets you like that's a no brainer. Those days you won't have to make up. So we've been pressuring him a little bit but there's, you know, it gets complicated to just passing a bill that has to go through the whole process into the governor and everything like that. So we're trying to put enough pressure on him so that schools that really had to close for the reasons that you gave that those are days that you don't have to make up. I really hope that would be the case but we have been talking about that. That's a real issue around the state. Yeah, I'll certainly can't bring the message back about the, the issue around the number of days to our House Education Committee I raised my hand on the non citizen voting to be clear. The charter change in Montpelier was only for the municipal side of elections it was not for the school board, precisely because of the issue of it. We're going across two towns and obviously Roxbury didn't ask to have its charter amended and the data house would not impose that sort of charter change on Roxbury. So on school issues there never has been an opportunity for non citizens to vote. Sadly, I mean I huge supporter of it, but it's a moot question unless both entities ask for the right to for that for non citizens. I just followed up on that a lot ago, where it has been an issue and I know John Odom is frustrated about this is with mailing of ballots that you know Montpelier would like to mail ballots to all voters and Roxbury does not want to do that because they want to, I think part of it is they have a healthy town meeting smaller town. So they don't want to either create confusion around that or discourage participation so my understanding is Roxbury's. I guess now refusal they denied it right yeah refusal to mail ballots means that ballots cannot be mail the Montpelier either so that that is an area where there has been a real effect. I, I'm a little confused by that and I'll talk with john. He has to carry a separate list for non citizen voters anyway. No, it's not non citizen it's all voters. It's okay mailing ballots. So you're not so we're not talking about non citizens now. We're talking about mailing ballots. Well, so I saw the language and maybe Anthony can jump in on Anthony or maybe yeah Anthony on this. I thought what we passed in terms of voting allowed for ballots to be commingled so Roxbury can do their thing Montpelier can do their thing and then we just count them together. So in order to do a mail up mail out or mail in ballots whichever you want to call it in a unified in a union in a union district, all the communities have to agree to do it or else it can't happen. So if you got Montpelier and rock story acting as a unit as a unified district, then both of the communities would have to agree to do the select boards of both communities would have to agree to allow it to happen first, before it could happen so. It is unfortunate, and I think from Montpelier, it's very frustrating because they put a lot of effort into doing mail in ballots or mail out ballots, which way to call it. But the law says that both community or all the communities involved have to agree to do it otherwise it can't happen so it is unfortunate. But that's what the law says. And with man with the nonsense and voting Mary's right I think Mary said that maybe maybe it was and, but not to this and voting only relates to town or city issues not not school issues. Schools are considered a separate municipality. Just really quickly on the co mingling it's an issue with the career center vote of all the towns that are voting on that. You have to get all six towns I think it is right towns that school boards to vote to not co mingle so those will have to be not male then and ball brought to bury. Okay. Thank you. Alanda. You can go about. Hi. I want to go back to the people waiting study and we haven't actually talked about it or decide or like how do we support or not support so individual as a school board of someone who really support equity and justice for English language learners and as someone who was English language learner myself, continue to be. Um, I, I read the Colby study that was that she was submitted about moving forward with a hybrid model for ELL students and I, you know, I really encourage you to really push forward for that because I think it's really is necessary. Um, as a Montpelier resident who really is part of a community that is trying to move forward of bringing refugees to our town to increase our diversity and support our refugee population. I think it's really, really important that we're putting our, you know, talk and moving forward with thinking about our refugee community and our future immigrants for our cities and towns. And I think also just, you know, center, when I hear you talk about losers and winners, you know, I really want to encourage for us to think about, you know, what that looks like in equity. It's not like it's about moving things around and it's not about who's losing or who's or who's winning, but it's about fairness and justice and how we really become an equity Vermont that we that we want to be. So I think I really just think about the distribution of resources as, you know, a justice issue. And I think, you know, everybody has talked about it. And I think it's time to move forward and to be creative and transformative. And not think of losers or winners, but think of like our students who are with the center of our world in this in this district so I just wanted to say that. Senator Cummings, do you have your hand up? Yeah. The reason we aren't, and the reason the summer task force did not regularly look at the printouts was that as they work through and as we work through the guiding force should not be who's a winner and who's a loser and one of my schools is losing. We have to change things. The guiding principle has been equity. How do we adequately fund the schools that are bearing the burden of the extra cost of educating certain groups of students. The English is second language and I'm remembering this. The one that one of the chairs one of the co chairs of the task force is on my committee and she is very articulate. Senator Hardy. Their recommendation the recommendation of the task force was that English language learners should be concentrated in a few schools. And they're trying to find a way to adequately fund those schools. And as we're trying to bring refugees and we're right now refugees have traditionally been more focused in the Chittenden County area. I've had some I know they're one of many years ago. Barry and my pillar were a site. Rutland is now a site. We want to make sure that the finances are there to adequately help those students learn a new language so that they can adjust and feel comfortable in a new culture. And one of the concerns through all of this the reason we do the waiting is to get the extra services for the students and ELL that's especially important. The concern is that if you just get more money, you there's no strings attached and schools have the option of just reducing their tax rates. And buying new band uniforms there's no control over that. So part of I think what we're looking at is, and I know Senator Brock who was on the task force and is also on my committee, and a former auditor has a put in a link so that we know that when we put this money in that students are in fact getting a benefit that you know that English language learners do you know until you learn the language and it's amazing how quickly, especially younger people can pick up a language. Until you learn that you, you, you really can't do a whole lot else. Unless you have a translator walking around, you know it's your elbow. So that's primary that's before you can even start education you've got to start getting a grasp of the language and so it based on equity, that's, that's just driving force right now that was the force that brought about the original study and the task force is how do we make this system equitable for students and for the schools that are educating them. Thank you for coming. Yeah. It looks like maybe a member of the public offered a question. I don't know if we wanted to take any of those or so I couldn't read what the whole question was but I just in the chat. I will take a look. Okay, yeah. I had a couple. I have a couple of questions. I was glad to hear an acknowledgement that we are in a mental health crisis right now. I'm curious to know because it is clear that our schools are carrying a lot of that burden and shouldn't be. I'm curious to know what resources you all know about or have seen in the governor's budget maybe I apologize I have not caught up on that myself. Thank you for the mental health system and and filling gaps in the mental health system statewide and not relying on our schools to be caring for the mental health of our students and staff representative So in the budget adjustment which passed out of my committee last week and is going to be on the floor of the house tomorrow. We significantly added to the governor's to the current fiscal year budget resources for designated agencies who are, you know, one of the key providers of mental health services broadly in our communities we significantly did work on that. Honestly, I doubt if it was enough but but we, we made a difference over what the governor had proposed. And we did not look into the success beyond six grants for the current fiscal year that as I mentioned I think we need to be doing that. I'm just, I bet they're level leash funded and I suspect they need to be significantly increased. So I'm planning on looking at that the governor's the proposal for FY 23 looked at expanding slightly the mobile crisis response that is being done in Rotland that is focused on on responding to children. In particular, but it's very limited it's just moving it to a handful of other communities so we need to do more and I would love to know more. I agree that this shouldn't be a responsibility at the school. We also know that delivery of health care services, you know, sometimes works best or our schools see the needs. And so if you have ideas for what we should be doing. Talk, talk to us. Tell us, tell us what it looks like rather than. Yeah, I would love to know what your thoughts are. I just wanted to comment on the, the comment in the chat which is actually something I wanted to raise as well. In terms of the surplus. I definitely agree with the sentiments that have been expressed that not only kind of ensuring that we've got funds for rainy day but also the investment. The investment opportunity in our infrastructure or schools that that might present. I do to kind of, you know, give support for the legislature to not rebate that because I'm sure there will be a lot of people would appreciate a rebate. And I don't want to minimize the tax burden that many folks have but this is an investment opportunity. And also I just would love to both plan an idea and get your thoughts on investment. A lot of our students have come to us talking about obviously they're very concerned about climate change, and they should be. And you know one thing that that a lot of students are very interested in doing I think a lot of board members share this desire is to make our schools part of part of the solution and to be carbon neutral. Are there some investment opportunities to invest in things like like heating systems and buses to get either lower lower or no carbon solutions and both school transportation and school heating. I can answer that last one last point and make a couple other quick comments, but they're working on a renewable energy grant program for schools heating specifically. We passed the language last year appropriations kind of said well we'll keep the language in there but we'll take the money because there's going to be a whole bunch of climate money with ARPA. Last year I think it is ARPA eligible, some have been working on over the summer. And so I think there definitely be opportunities there. Heating them up the other school is tricky and it was, there's the whole district heating issue that happened but I think there will be money there and for just for for the heating system but also for the electric buses and transportation a bunch of money for buses but also for charging stations and things like that. And the school as a workplace so that teachers that drive electric cars can can plug them in while they're there. So definitely working on on those things and then on the funding. I mean you don't have to, I mean you might have to convince the governor so he doesn't veto it but you know Mary and Anne and their committees they can they can, you know work on how that surplus is dealt with and one of the issues that we talked about in the task force is on the waiting task force is that some of these changes will be quite dramatic for some districts and some of that surplus could be used as part of the in, you know, in addition to overtime. This is an opportunity to do this equity work, but make it not so much of a big hit to to some of these taxpayers. Thank you. Yeah, I, you know, the governor did his address and he told people they're all going to get a rebate, and we're going to lower your tax rates and he's told people they're going to get. You know, a couple of groups like nurses and childcare workers we're going to give you a tax credit. But there's nothing in there that I've seen about tax credits for mental health workers. And we have is crying in need for that is anything. He's asked us to do a rebate, but there's no details. Is it going to be income based is it going to be everybody how he's saying half but no fleshing out of that the other half of the surplus. He wants to use for technical education and beefing that up. But again, there's no details. And the finance committee doesn't know anything about technical education so I'm back to education. And again, I can't see how we are going to get through the waiting study. Without it impacting the education fund. We were very concerned because we did see a $30 million increase in pension costs. Last year. The pension negotiations could really up it but it looks like we've taken the worst of the hit in the end fund on that. But waiting could be and just because we're flush this year there's a lot of needs. And a lot of, you know, and it is it's climate change. It's, we've got schools where the swamp next door is draining into the basement. We are just starting doing rate on testing in schools. We got off pretty cheaply doing lead testing, but right on could go either way. And so we're, I don't think we're going to make any commitments, at least I'm not until we get as many of the, we know as much as we possibly can about our present financial state and what, you know, what the future costs are going to be and what the implications are. It's easy to say well we're going to do a tax cut and make everybody feel good and then next year we have to raise it. And that's an ongoing battle. We have that one every couple years. But it. You need to be able to plan over the long term and make sure that schools don't see those big hits up or down. And you need to work to try and level that so that you can operate without a taxpayer revolt out there on you. Thank you. I just asked that you be loud in your support of reinvesting the money rather than rebating it or giving it back its taxes. And if you could get the school board association to be equally loud, I think that will be very helpful. We try to listen hard to everybody, but voices coming in saying no reinvest it would be very helpful. In regard to the climate issues. This is very important to me personally and I'm looking for every way that I can to figure out how to make the investments that are going to make a difference. I think that aside in the budget adjustment $87 million so that we would be prepared to do the matching that is necessary to draw down as many federal dollars as we can. And we're all also obviously looking at the ARPA dollars so I'm looking for every opportunity we can to bring those resources to our communities on this issue. I would also just add that it's important to have the school districts raise their voices the faculty and staff. It's really important and inspiring to allow the students to continue to be heard as well. And you know it's one thing as Mary and Anna said, it's one thing to it's hard to fight against the little tax cut because people feel good about it. The tax cut doesn't necessarily help you if you've done your schools are dilapidated in the long run. And having the schools be good examples of being climate neutral being carbon neutral and making the right kinds of investments will actually save more money down the road, and people are going to get from this small tax cuts that he's talking about so you just have to make sure that people hear your voices and I appreciate the fact that students have really been speaking up lately. I know that takes a lot of cooperation on the part of teachers and staff to allow that to happen and I think that's really really important. Let's do their hands. Yeah. Just wanted to plus one on the energy efficiency upgrades because that is in the top three of issues that we hear from our community. I've only been on the board for a little over a year but over and over and over we have students showing up we have member other members of the community showing up a board meetings, saying this is a priority for them so just carrying their voices on over to you just wanted to chime in on that one. And then the other question I wanted to ask was about. I can't remember who maybe it was you representative who were asking about Ctes. We have a great partnership with the center Vermont career center and one thing that I did catch in the governor's, I believe the state of the state was a real need to be investing in in the trades. And this is a place. This, this, this career center is a place where we can be doing that it's, it's on the cusp of real growth, I believe they had to turn away almost half of the students that applied to go because of space. And as some of the perch like referenced earlier, we're now we're our town and the other 17 towns that send students there will be voting to make it its own district and it feels like a real chance to sort of like a shining star of education and career development and career preparation for the young people for generations to come so I just wanted to. I don't know exactly what I mean it's going to take money to make that happen, and it feels like a real win win for both. We need to make our state needs, because we need people who can do these really technical, highly specific and very well trained jobs. And we need to be able clearly we need to be able to give the students this opportunity because they haven't had to turn away so many of them just this year. So, I guess that's just me making a pitch for it instead of really asking a question but if there was that that feels to me like the kind of facilities investment also in addition for buildings that we need to be making. And it's a regional center so senators that's your constituents want that all around the region. Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm supportive I really hope that it does pass that a new government government instruction. Great Kristen. Hi thanks Jim hopefully everybody's going to be able to hear me my, my connection is a little unstable out here in Roxbury so that's a vote for broadband but I, yeah I wanted to kind of tie a couple things together on one I just want to you know I appreciate the, you know the things that you're all getting but I really school board members to some degree were spectators, even though many people on our school board are cleaning bathrooms and classrooms. I have a board that is incredibly engaged and active and rolling up sleeves to really try to see our schools through, but I just really want to give it up to Libby bone steel who has been an incredible incredible. I mean, I couldn't think of really like a more fitting last name for Libby. Because even though even though I will not say I mean this is not to undermine that this has been so hard for her and all of our staff and I think anything that you can continue to do to advocate for our schools and the reality that they're experience on a daily basis that ranges anywhere from heartbreaking to exhausting to impossible to just convey that message to legislators and the governor and the agency of education. And he has, you know, there's the new test to stay roll out that's underway and testing kits coming out and it's a lot of change all at once and just giving some autonomy to the districts to decide how that roll out looks and how the distribution of tests looks would be incredibly helpful to our district and the highly qualified nursing staff and administrators in our buildings. So yeah, that's one piece. I did have some questions I know Senator Purchlick that you were on the universal after school task force, I believe which I'm not sure if that work is done. I do and I wanted to respond I know representative Cooper you had asked a question just where this board is that in terms of after school programming because it sounds like there is some funding that's coming through the governor's budget. So I'm curious if those two things I'm sure they're connected in terms of the work of the task force and the money that's being put out there but you know when I think about and full disclosure I'm a parent that does. I'm a working parent who does take advantage of after school programming and it's how I'm able to go to work. And I think that's true for many families and I think there's many things like there are definitely some families in our district I know that are not able to access after school programming because of capacity. I'm curious how that funding is going to become available what it's intended for while our district does have after school programs in both towns even though they operate somewhat differently. You know who is going to be eligible for that funding and how. And then I would just also wonder you know after school programs can be really really powerful settings for mental health services. So a big role of after school programming is social emotional and behavioral supports of our students and just you know encouraging some rethinking about how after school program funding could be extended towards really kind of bulking up mental health support opportunities even though I know our resources are also thin in terms of just people. And I guess I would just say that all after school programs are not equal. And so if we have funding that is really going to invest in excellent staffing that can really play the role the potential role that after school programs can fill. And then we can be picking up some of some of the slack that not the slack but just some of the hardship on the school day in terms of educational enrichment happening in after school the mental health piece. And just in the wraparound services for families that sometimes it's just really hard for school day folks to extend so clearly I'm an advocate for after school and I would just really love to hear the status of the funding and the universal after school funding. Thank you. Well I can I can start on the task force did end its work we should get our report, but we're going to have Holly more house into the Education Committee to get us an update. It's the one thing. I'm sure there are other things but well I think I disagree with the governor on a lot of things but one thing that I'm really in line with him on is universal after school funding and it seems like something he's very genuine and I know folks that work for the governor are really working hard to make that funding happen and working together with, with, you know, after school Vermont to make it happen so I don't know that maybe Mary or and those more the details of the funding I just know that he mentioned it and I know I've talked to folks in the governor's office about that there's going to be money. The task force. We talked about making sure that the money from the cannabis sales is is continued to be earmarked for after school to that. That's the kind of ongoing funding that we're going to need to have universal after school of the high quality that you talked about which I totally agree with. And we're going to need something like that to really get to universal after school because we have this one time money. And as everybody talks about they don't want to use one time money for ongoing programs. So a part of that cannabis money is something that we could use for the after school and the summer programs and the vacation days. And all the, all the different things that these, these children need when their parents are working so I'm, I'm continuing to work on it also center champion was on a prior. After school task force a few years ago so he's also a big supporter of it so it's something that the Education Committee is going to continue to work on. Unfortunately I don't have any details for you today. Center coming. Yeah, I, I also have the cannabis bill. And there's several proposals for how to spend the money I have at least three cannabis bills, but when the base agreement went through is that I'm forgetting the percentage money would go to prevention and after school was part of the prevention but in the spirit of saying something as an idea and knowing that it's frequently takes over a decade for an idea whose time has come. We are struggling with an entire system that was set up when mothers were home to take care of children and children went to school when they were six. And they came home at 233 o'clock in the afternoon and they had days off and they came home when they were sick, and they had the summers off. That isn't so anymore. We're dealing with childcare, and we found out the stress and childcare is equal to the stress in schools only the pay is worse. We need to find a way to socialize the fact that women are in the workforce that children need someone to care for them, watch them educate them while their parents are working. That's pre school. I watch my daughters, one of my daughters is a vet tech. She drops her kids off at school at 730 in the morning because she has to be to work in the afternoon. Those same grandchildren go to day camp in Montpelier, fortunately, but it gets out at 430 and their parents don't get out of work until five o'clock. My grandfather and I picked them up and they come to our house until their parents are free. Not everyone has grandparents that can pick kids up. And we've got all these different schedules and we're going to have to because we're going to have to find a way our children who are our future need that. And we are working. And a lot of it comes down to money. I think we know what needs to be done but finding a way to socialize that cost and I think businesses learn during the pandemic that yes childcare is very important. Your workers can't work if their kids keep getting sent home from school, because they've been exposed or, you know, their workers are afraid. Child care has been an essential and school has been an essential and having some place for those kids to go after school is essential. Hopefully, as we come out of this will be able to have a talk with the business community with society as a whole, as to how do we socialize the cost of caring for our children because we all benefit from it. It's challenging, but it's all there. It's all, it's all one piece right up through post secondary education or training or, you know, whatever we're calling it. I don't acknowledge we're a little over time and I promised you an hour so I don't want to keep up with it. Give time for I think about it has one more question and then we can can thank you and go or and if you're if you need to go now that's that's okay too but I'm on that. I know that we have a lot of family concerns about our special education, and I want to, you know, just see what you're thinking about that and how you're putting money into the needs of our special air newer diversities are kids with disabilities that are in, you know, disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and all that is happening so I know that we are families have concerns about their students. And yeah, I wanted to know how much effort and money you're putting to increase our special education funding and support for our families and for our teachers and our schools and our district. What I can say on that is that on the waiting task force and then on Dr Colby's study that they talked about the funding that's needed for special education and didn't recommend a different way to although that's that's a potential option. It's clear that the changes of Act 173 which would change it to a census block grant are going to have an impact on that and sort of like the weights it could, depending on which special education students you have which year it could provide more funding or it could provide less. Definitely, as far as from my perspective, if we have to make sure that the Act 173 changes happen together with the weights because it's going to impact, they're going to be interconnected all these things, and you need to know kind of how much, you know, what your budget is with the pupils that you have, whether they have special needs. We also talked about having a special grant for those students that are experiencing trauma because that was something else that Dr Colby identified in her original report is that if you're talking about additional funding to get some students up to performing at the same level as others, those that have experienced trauma definitely need more services and didn't recommend a weight for that either, but recommended that we look at trying to find some kind of like categorical grant for that so that's something else that we're going to look at and but I hear you Amanda and I'm also willing to talk to you and more about the English language learners and I want to make sure that maybe you come into the committee and talk about it as well. Okay, well thank you again we this was a fantastic conversation you really appreciate your time and you're willing just to go over time. I look forward to continuing to communicate throughout the session and working with you to both improve our schools and do good by our students and get us out of the current pandemic stronger than that we came into it so I thank you again really really appreciate it at the time. Thank you. Thank you. All the school people that are working so hard. It's amazing. Representative Hooper dropped something into the chat that she wanted us if someone could just read out loud so we can all know what she said. Just as I have no details on the government's proposal. Okay great. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. So next on the agenda is a facilities committee update and I'm not sure. Update on. Yeah. I'm used to saying that front of these people. Kristen did try to get us back together we did have a plan in the fall that we thought it'd be great to visit the school buildings to sort of remind us the context of the conversations about the facilities. And so I do think we'd still like to do that I think that has gotten rightly derailed by just the literal demand on staff time. So I think we talked about setting up some dates in the coming months and possibly having maybe in person tours when it seems safe to do so and into the buildings before board meetings. Do maybe one per board meeting something like that. Yeah, no that I think that's a great idea and I know. I mean I certainly did one when I was really on the board, it was very helpful. Those were different times, but I think when the staff feels comfortable doing it, we should definitely do it. It's really good to see that. Even things like to see the systems and you know how the seeing the board Andrews eyes or seeing the buildings through Andrews eyes is a completely different experience than you just walking through the hallways. Yeah. Excellent. Really, really briefly to on this issue with regard to net zero initiatives the city audit did come out it was published I did send that around months ago. I don't know if I send it to everyone on the board but I think I send it to the facilities committee. And I do think that's something that when the facilities committee next meet next meets should review and discuss and talk with Andrew about general implications it was at a very high level. But I think it would still be helpful. Yeah. Great thank you. So we need to approve a budget. Small little item grant you want to give us any any updates and then we can can give you what you need. Thank you. No problem. It was interesting conversation over here. Tonight is the briefing that I sent out is a obviously a shortened version was focused on changes and even that I'm still going to slide a similar over most slides just because there's not a whole lot you need to be updated on. Fortunately, for anybody who's calling in that wants more information, just a reminder the January 5 briefing was very, very comprehensive had a lot more information. That is posted on the board's website. So if you want to dig in a little deeper and you didn't see that last presentation you can go to the January 5 briefing. For tonight though, I was just hoping can you. Yeah, I'm sorry. Tonight I'm just going to skip to the fourth slide that you received that says changes. And while Libby's trying to get that up I'm just going to go ahead and start talking about it. The only real significant change in the budget is that we received a final final in air quotes equalized pupil count. Unfortunately, it's almost 15 kids higher than the last presentation that I showed you so that's good. The, we were expecting it to be. I think we had plugged in 10 more kids for English language learners that were that were missing. We got exactly those 10 kids, but we also got a bump for free and reduced lunch waiting, which was a little more than I anticipated. And to tell you the truth, much like last year when I try to do the math to recreate that. I'm not getting the same answer, but it's a good number so I guess I won't push too hard. That equalized pupil count that's almost 15 kids higher what that does is it drops our spending for pupil about $215, which also drops our tax rates in both communities it's around two cents. So, that's good. You can skip all the way Libby to I think slide must go to slide eight, the tax rates, you can look through these at your leisure but there we go. So the residential tax rates on page eight. The equalized pupils about halfway down you can see that number 1248.74 that's the new number of the change which obviously drops your spending with people. The dollar yield is highlighted because, as you remember there were kind of two different scenarios. We are using the more conservative number which has been recommended by the a we that everybody use the more conservative number. So the very bottom line the residential tax rate with CLA that number is obviously a little different than the last time we got together. So this is about two or 2.1 cents lower than it was, and Roxbury is about 1.7 or 1.8 cents lower than it was. So, just to kind of review the bidding from FY 22 budget to FY 23 budget my pillars tax rate is about 4.8 cents lower. Roxbury tax rate is about 1.6 cents higher. The next slide shows those residential tax rate impacts for every $100,000 worth of property value. So you can see in Montpelier it'd be $48 less for $100,000 in property and Roxbury $16 more for every 100,000. As the note says we don't have a final dollar yield that won't come out until after Tom meeting day so these are final final numbers but this is pretty good. These are pretty good numbers for us. Can you skip. Actually, I think, like maybe two or three more slides to like the summary. So the budget summary, just as a reminder, you know we did get that influx of federal funds. We did have that dollar yield which is significantly higher than it has ever been. So those things did allow us to add a lot of resources which was awesome for us awesome for the kids. One of the big tax payers is it didn't create a huge burden to taxpayers. So the total budget increase 4.5%. That's pretty, that's a pretty big number for us it's usually around 3.5 to 4%. So it's a little bigger than usual. But because of additional federal funds, the increase in Ed spending was only 4%, which is more kind of typical for us. I mean, for people is a little higher because we had a drop in pupils, but that dollar yield increase really build us up. So the bottom line, my tillers tax rates going down 4.8 cents which is 2.7 2.7% reduction rocks 1.6 cents, but that is only a 1.1% increase. So I think that's very reasonable. Next please. Just a reminder for everybody out there that our S or public plan is out there there's a link there. The final slide I have is just to open it up for you if there are any questions you have before you approve the budget and approve the warning and those are the two things you really need to do today is approve the budget, and then approve the budget and authorize Jim to sign that warning. I was a question this past week by another board member, and I couldn't remember. I was asked that the per people spending. What if our equalized people number was, was final, and I could, I remember it at some point in recent years changed late in the game. We got some additional information. Has it some has it changed in the past five years has it changed after this point when we voted. It may have last year. Yeah, and I think last year was the only year that in my 16 years that it came out that late. And I think a lot of that was because of data problems with student information systems, and how they fed in. I believe the number that we have right now is the final number that we're going to get. The, occasionally, what will happen is a district will find an error. And, and so the AOE will just adjust that one district and they won't harm anybody else because it's so late. So I think this is our final number. It's a little lower than last year, but it's luckily a little higher than I thought it was going to be. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, just looking a little further ahead, like to next year. I guess not necessarily for this year but the equalized people did that do you do you think that that went down more because we cleaned up our data this year or do you think that that is a more of a trend because it's we also have some declining enrollment or I think is it all I guess I think there's two factors that I would say for grand jumps in is that our pre K population or kids who are enrolled in our pre K is considerably less than what it typically has been in the past. I see. And our kindergarten is considerably lower now remember neither of those two things are mandatory. Right. So there could very well be families out there. I don't know I have no way of knowing right that are holding their kids out of kindergarten in particular. Until next year. Yeah. And I'd say, I think our number is down like maybe 11 or 12 from last year, right. About six of that is just because the overall statewide equalizing ratio that's everybody gets hit with dropped us by six kids right there. Yeah, so over half of our decrease was because of an equalizing ratio statewide that's a little lower than that's true. And that's not related to us having cleaner data. It is not it's related to just the actual number of kids versus the waiting, how the waiting artificially increases and so there's, it looks like there's more kids than there really are. And so they bring everybody down. Yeah. So everybody gets it with like a 95% factor. And in last year that factor was a little higher statewide. So that is over half of it, and then about four kids I think is probably just pre K by itself, because we were up to about 130 between in house and in private, and I think we're down to 8080. Yeah, it's really low. Okay, it's very low. Overall, I think it was FY 21, we hit our high water mark I think for for kindergarten through 12. And I don't think we're going to drastically drop that we are going to be fairly stable and maybe slightly declining so it is something to think about. The waiting study is is a little more concerning how that waiting factor might impact us. And I was glad to hear the legislators talk about transitioning to it. Because I think, if that all happened in one year, it would be devastating for tax rates so I'm glad that they're talking already about transitioning. Okay. Thanks, Grant. Other questions. I think you're going to have to go to the historical society. I kind of like rock's variants though. The right stuff. If we want to do it. If you're good with it. Okay, just just making sure I think it's official right now. So, I know that the palm level appraisal in Roxbury is essentially causing us to pay higher tax rate with regard to the school budget. And I don't under and this could go to anyone and it could be and I could maybe use some support outside of this meeting. I'm going to want to speak to that in our town meeting and sort of explain how that doesn't get hit with tax increase. Based on the common level of appraisal. I mean, it's 11.8% negative impact meeting we would pay 1120 11.8 cents negative impact, meaning we would pay more. So I think the important piece to put in perspective for folks is that it was the overall actual tax burden like a little dollar amount that's on the property tax bill is still far lower. The CLA and not failure isn't 80% which is like there. That's pretty bad and the property values in Roxbury have been going up and down. And there's such a small number of sales per year that it's a lot more volatile, but I think it's I for me it's helpful to look at the actual literal property tax bill on the same value is still lower it's not that there's a lot of sales per year. And if you can go back one more slide. Yeah. So yeah on this slide you can see. It's the CLA is right and and the drop between 2223 for Roxbury is dramatic compared to Montpelier. So even though Montpelier seeing a drop in the tax rate and Roxbury seeing an amount of sales per year is still a much lower tax rate overall. And I think if you look at the trend that one slide that line graph you can see that Roxbury is way better absorbed in the volume of Montpelier and after that slide again, number eight. Can I, I'm going to just try. I've no problem doing this. This is helpful for Roxbury residents to so before. So before the CLA is applied this is the tax rate. It's the same for both municipalities. So an FY 22, it was a dollar and 49 cents. And then in FY 23, it drops to 1.394. But the CLA is the thing that gets applied last. And so this number this tax rate gets divided by that CLA. So the higher the CLA is the lesser the dollar rate is going to be right to divide something by four. One fourth is less than one half. Right. Same thing here. So the base tax rate is lesser this year, but because Roxbury CLA dropped six or 8%. That is having a big impact in driving your tax rate up there. Yeah, I mean that's the part I know that the, the value's gone up a lot. There's been a lot of change. No, well, no, but I mean, I just, I'm trying to think of how the conversation is framed. Because property values sold at higher rates. Yeah. Roxbury's taxes were adjusted up to reflect the higher, but it didn't hurt if we only pay 1.1% more. Like, that's the part that I want to get my head around the details a little better. Because I want to, because this is great. This is amazing for Roxbury considering the changes that we've seen. And I want to be able to speak to that when the time comes before, before the time of the time that we want to anyone, especially in the visioning process. All of this, I want to understand as well as I can so that I can convey how important it is that this is where we are. I would say for both communities, the thing that saved us this year saved a lot of people and that is the high dollar yield, which is a statewide factor that gets compared to our spending. That dollar yield helped both communities out dramatically. It, it looks like Montpelier is better off than Roxbury as far as looking at 22 to 23. But both communities benefited by the dollar yield. And then the fact that Montpelier CLA didn't drop as dramatically made them actually have a better tax rate compared to last year, whereas Montpelier's or Roxbury's drop was a little more significant, but still because of that dollar yield going up so much, it really absorbed most of that. So I think next year it'll be very interesting because both communities are reappraising. So I'm wondering theoretically you would hope that both communities would have a CLA that's pretty close to 100% next year. So it'll be neat because the, the equalized. That's a great deal with that. The equalized rate, residential tax rate, which Andrew was pointing out before CLA is the same for both communities. If this, if the reappraisal comes out and both communities are around 100%, then the actual tax rates will be very similar as well. Yeah, and it won't be as confused. I'll be able to refer back to that. And one more way to think about this is that that equalized tax rate dropped 7% from last fiscal year to this fiscal year, but the common level of appraisal for Roxbury dropped about 8%. So that drop in the CLA of 8% was greater than the drop in the base tax rate of 7%, and that offsets it. That's why it goes up a little bit for Roxbury. Whereas for Montpelier, it drops, the CLA drops 4%, which does not offset that 7% decrease in the base rate. So therefore Montpelier realized the increase, but it's the CLA is based on it's it's based on sales of properties in the different municipalities. I will be better able to explain it just for this. I think Edwin runs out his time for, I don't know about that. And as I've been telling you when I have been here talking about this is that education spending has not exploded right so the education fund collects what the education fund needs to spend. So the actual literal property tax bill is not jumping at the same rate as the CLA. So it may it's it's just important to remember that that that if we if our if our budget had gone up of a large amount and the CLA had dropped that I can see some changes, but these are all different factors that are meant to kind of balance it back out. So the actual demand from our district has not jumped the same way that the CLA is watching. Any other comments or questions? We go to approve a budget. I moved to approve the FY23 school budget. So I have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Hi. I have a clarification question. The S or three. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Great. Thank you. You said S or three is not included in the but there's a little bit. There's some for a couple of positions. But just some is like 300,000 out of the two point whatever. Yeah. This is not the S3 plan. And then do we do a second motion just on the warning? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the warning of the 2020 annual meeting? Yeah, you're moving. I'll second. All those in any discussion? All those in favor? Hi. Any opposed? Excellent. We have a budget passed. Wow. Thank you so much, Frank. And just a reminder for the community on February 28th, we'll have the informational hearing so we'll go through the whole thing again right before the budget vote. Thank you very much for your patience as we went through this. No, thank you for your patience. Much appreciation for it. Some spin drift. I will say also the CLA is aimed at providing equitability to the funding system. So different municipalities can't gain that system. That's something that you can explore as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love there was that. Jim, there were two warnings in our board packet. Did we just vote on both of them at the same time? Or do we need to vote on the second? I think the second one was a read the second warning you actually approved last meeting, except it was for the. However, we were sent some, some updated language that was very minuscule. So you technically already approved that one, but we wanted to make sure you had the new language. Okay, we don't have to re approve it. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I had the same question. Thank you. Third reading of policy D seven special education. Do we need to vote on the increase to the FTE? For specialist. Yeah. I'm sorry, that's special. Yeah. So, Let me just talk about it real quick. You're voting on. Yep. So we have a new. Family. We may have two more. Families from Afghanistan, but they're getting settled in trying to find housing arrangements. So they may or may not come to us. So, which is awesome. And they're absolutely the most beautiful children. This is sooner rather than later. You just approved a budget that has this in it for next year, but we definitely need that service now. So it's a total cost, additional cost of $12,618 to get through the end of the year for us to move Laura Rooney from a 0.6 FTE to a 1.0 FTE. You already have the staffing. Yeah, great. And where will you draw the 12,000-ish? We always underspend in our salary lines. Okay. For multiple reasons, but grants, grants not concerned about this impact to our budget. Okay. Is it in the new hires or just moving? Currently, Laura Rooney is a 0.6 FTE and she was working as a part-time employee actually over at the Historical Society. And so she most definitely wants to move to a 1.0 FTE. So no, you don't have to hire anybody. You're not going to get that answer for a while. Sorry, Historical Society. Do I have a motion to approve the increase to the English language? Yes. Yeah, so moved second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. All those. Great, that passes. Now we're on to the third reading of the all CD7 special education. Any comments, notes, or edits? Otherwise it'll be in the manual, right? We should ask them about that. That's just not the case. They're not the right people. Parking up the wrong tree deck. Just kidding. Different branch of government. Not to be in there. All right, so that will appear in next week's consent or next meeting's consent agenda. Yep. Excellent. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Can I have an update of the answer? Sure. To the bypass of the CD7 special ed and literacy? I finished up compiling all of the notes in the wrong document to send to all of you with your presentation. I did want to just that, you know, for some we want to send the notes to those special pockets and say, you weren't here. If you still have time to give us a hand feedback, so there's like a little form with the notes from the meeting with us. But like, if you have families in literacy, they can just flip it off if you both want. So I did want to update you all on that topic. So I'll be sending out we have right now in the next few days. And then, you know, I think we'll still have that as an ongoing kind of this process. It was very rich. I, you know, took notes for the BIPOC. I ended up staying for the LGBTQ because Julia didn't take nothing. B, who's from not right, but just take the notes. So I just like took the notes and then Mia did the literacy and then I took the notes for the special ed. So it was really just beautiful and nice to have contact with families. And I do believe that we wanted to do another one for families, low income families. But I don't know like what capacity we have to stand up in those. Now I think we'll just do like a few meetings or lunches like pop-ups in Zoom. So not like just here, like the four and then, you know, each of the school board can just take one. Not so much like a community board, but just say that we'll be here to listen. So we can come up with a few in the next few weeks and just do it. Thank you so much, Amanda, for spearheading that and yeah. And for helping and being present and listening. It's great. Yeah, absolutely, thank you. Did I hear you say in the beginning, you're gonna get us the notes? Yeah. Okay. And then Saturday. Oh, there's no rush right now, believe me. I'm like sleeping. I'm like a week behind. Believe me, I will be on my computer until the morning, but. I thought I'll motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. All right. Thanks everyone. Congrats on a budget. Thank you. Bye everyone.