 who's looking is in the back, page 64 of your bulletin. And I'll just say this is the informational meeting, which means the vote is tomorrow. But let me call the meeting to order first. Rochester Stockbridge Unified School District in person and remote public informational hearing notice and agenda for May 2, 2022. The Rochester Stockbridge Unified School District Board of Directors will be holding a public information meeting in person at Rochester Elementary School, by electronic means, on this day, May 2, 2022, at 6.30 p.m. to discuss Australian ballot articles on the 2022 annual Unified District meeting morning. Good. And obviously, the information is out there. Those of you who need to get on see we have a little hard plan to read to these numbered names up there. So I'm going to probably get some help if somebody would get a ride. So we have called to order. And this is not our regular meeting. This is a special meeting, so we won't be going over agendas from previous meetings. Additions or deletions to the agenda, I believe we have any. And then we're going to go to our slideshow, which provides a whole lot of information. First thing I'd like to say is welcome you all tonight. Now that we've done the official, thank you for coming out on a rainy evening. And thank you for joining us online. We're quite happy with where our school is and where it's going. We're certainly here to answer any of all questions you have about the budget and about other issues, too. That's on the agenda. Yeah, that's on the agenda, questions that are on the agenda. But there is a section at the end, which is any other questions. So our goal here is to inform you. So please let us do so. Oh, you moved over a little bit. Can you hear from over there? OK, well, that's where I put the chairs over there. You want to sit in front, then we can actually see them. Right, that's why I put the chairs over there. Yeah, or the chairs on the right there. Obviously, we're figuring out this mixed media, both live and virtual. Let's just say you probably need to move them to be able to see them. The slides. The slides, so you know, maybe we should come over here. Yeah, come in front of this table. There you go. To start us off, I believe we're here with our slideshow. Oh, we have to do introduction. You're first. What's that? You're first. Ah, very good. For a little bit, and I'll take a break. OK, I'd like to introduce myself. I am, my name is Ethan Bowen. I'm the chairman of the Rochester Stockpiz Unified District. Amy Will, vice chair. And Bill Edgerton, member. Member. Patrick Hudson-Clark, you did it. Good boy. Robert Mayer, member. And on my virtual is Dean Kavakis, who is also a member. The administration. Jamie Canarney, the White River Valley Supervisor Union superintendent is not here with us tonight. But in his stead, we have Lindy Stetson, who is our principal. I guess you can introduce yourself. Sorry. I'm Lindy Stetson. I'm the principal of Rochester and Stockbridge schools. And sitting next to her. I'm Tara Weatherow. I'm the White River Valley Supervisor Union business manager. And Anda, if you would. Sure. I'm Anda Adams. I'm the chief academic officer of MTSS for the Supervisor Union. And is this your first annual meeting with Rochester Stockbridge? It sure is. Great. So glad to have you. I hope people haven't met on it yet. Really, really great to have her along on board with us. I'm doing a lot of great things. Great introductions. So the first thing to remind you is that the vote is tomorrow from 10 AM, 10 AM until 7 PM at both town offices, both Stockbridge and Rochester town offices, unless you have already put in an absentee ballot. And you can put that in place by 7 PM on May 3, which is tomorrow at the same time. Good. Any other details? Or are you ready to take over? So welcome, and thanks for joining us. And to start with, we just kind of have some introductions of what's been going on at school, because it's been so long since we've really had people in school from our community in the past two years now. So we did present, and I put the links in there, but I can also share them with folks if they would like. At several of our board meetings, and every board meeting, really, we do a celebration of learning. So what's going on within our school? And so to highlight a couple of those, there's one presentation of literacy in the woods. That is something that the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students in Stockbridge have been doing once every other week. And that's kind of what you see in that middle picture there. April was poetry month, so she's reading some poetry that she wrote in the woods as well as some she picked out. That's, of course, greater than Stockbridge. They also, one area we've learned from our academic data that our students struggle with is vocabulary and understanding different vocabularies. So they actually have a set of vocabulary words they take out with them, and they've already researched the definition. But then they pair up in groups and have to act out the vocab word with each other. And it's almost like a bigger game of trades, but also a different way for our kinesthetic learners to be able to really grab on to that information. We also implemented this year an outdoor education program on both campuses with Amy Braun. And there's a presentation there. And on the left-hand side is one of our third grade students in Rochester. They did a whole unit on the mushrooms. And what's edible and why they grow is because they're in a big bag where you can find them and they height a lot of different local places, including out back here, but also within the Rochester community to identify different mushrooms that they're learning about. And that's just to highlight. And then on the far right is preschool learning, which also connects to one of our big implementations this year as we implemented a new mathematics curriculum program this year using some of our Esther money or our COVID money. Preschool through sixth grade. And so here's some of our younger students, our four-year-old preschool program working on one-to-one correspondence. So we can count to 10, but we also know what 10 physically is, which is a big piece of that. So if you have some time and you'd like to know these are just, the presentations are linked in there as they've already been shared out. I hinted at, we had some new educational program this past school year's budget supported that was outdoor education, which happens two days a week for all our students on both campuses, preschool through sixth grade. We also have world languages for all our students that happens one time a week on both campuses. We have something called pathways, which is new and it ties into the Vermont law or a concept of flexible pathways, which is the student interest-based learning. So if they pick topics that they're interested in and they go out and learn more about them and sometimes that can range from making a snowball now and how volcanoes erupt to different mindfulness activities and other areas they wanna strengthen and we've tied some writing into this as well. We've also added math interventionists who shared amongst both campuses for the first time this year and works with some of our students to help close some gaps they may have in mathematics. We have a school-based clinician in a partnership with Claire Bartman and she works with students either per parent request or identify it who just need additional social emotional support. And then one of probably the favorites, it might have been begrudgingly at first but it's definitely a favorite now is we do mindful in this yoga with an outside instructor one time a month at both campuses. And I say begrudgingly, they think they're the older kids think I'm a little mean for implementing it but they actually really enjoy it and have become point the balancers and can do all those different trips. And I say that and I can't do that myself. But we're really proud of the academic growth we've seen in our students this year and it speaks volumes to how hard our faculty and staff have worked at supporting our students to be successful academically. And one thing we really are focused in on is how much they're growing. It's really important that they're on grade level or exceeding grade level but we want to ensure that they're growing at a rate that needs or exceeds the state expectations. So they are, how do I line up? So we're sending our students out into middle school and high school with a skill set that they need. So what you see up here are a couple of sections. We are just getting ready to start our spring testing starts tomorrow in fact. But what you see up here is kind of our fall scale scores from grades three through six from a benchmark that we take called Starco 60. And the goal of a scale score is it kind of gives us a numerical number in comparison to the rest of the group where our kids fall on average. And this is how we can measure growth. Because it's important that those who are have lagging skill sets are growing tremendously but also those who are exceeding the skills of their grade level are growing just as quickly or further as well. So that we meet everybody from bottom to top and in between. So this growth rate, we are seeing our students grow in literacy at two times the expected rate that the state sets for us. You want at least one time growth. And so for us to double that that we are closing gaps, excuse me and exceeding the state expectation for some of our students. And in June, I'll have the results from our May testing. So it's been great because we did implement a new literacy program about, oh gosh, three to four years ago roughly. So we're really starting to see that work pay off around professional development new materials for students how we structure a literacy block and more. And then our math, math is growth rate. We haven't quite grown as much as we would like but we're making significant progress. We did start off right about in the average range for the state and we're closing some gaps and you'll see some grade level with second grade have grown tremendously fourth grade is and third grade are right where we're looking for them to be. So that being said, it wasn't until this fall that we've implemented this new mathematics curriculum and I'll talk about that in a second. So it's great that we're already seeing some growth in our students and our learners. And so here's the new math program. What we've been doing is more than just new textbooks actually doesn't include textbooks at all. But we have provided mathematics professional development for all our staff to go with this curriculum. We didn't just hand it to them and ask, say, here you go, ready, set, go. We've provided professional development that actually heard over the summer. So then you went to expect and they were able to unpack all their materials. This mathematics curriculum has structured a math block. Students are in mathematics class for at least 60 minutes a day, some 75 minutes a day. And during that time they're using manipulatives which is what we've seen both groups using on the screen. They're participating in something called number corner which builds their number sense. They have to figure out the pattern for each day. It's kind of like a calendar and flip over a card and then it asks different questions. Investigation questions, some of us might know that as work problems or multi-step problems. And then math workplaces which we would call math. But they work together in pairs, record their data and there's a lot of skills that's across that. That those periods work on. All teachers receive mathematics coaching and data monitoring, meaning they're looking at their math data or their checkpoint assessments with every month, with our WRBSU math coach and my former co-principal, Bonnie Warren, which has been great resource right now and everybody's been very open to it. We are doing academic checkpoints more frequently because one gap we found is that you don't check to see if students found it or not. You never know the answer until you come to a big test. So we try and check in a little more frequently. And then having our mathematics interventionists that's been shared between both campuses had been a great thing. We started with approximately 25 students receiving math intervention and we have already exited seven of those students. And then the next part for me is just really fun learning in action. We've had quite a wide variety of activities go on. I'm going to turn it back over to Ian who wants to go ahead with the question. Any questions so far on what's been happening at the school and principal? Yes, who do you identify yourself to? Just so we may not know you. My name is Volta Gala. I'm not here to question you in the budget. I'm interested in an approach to your reporting I guess. This district has periodically or chronically had a large number of special education pupils. And I want to know how those special ed pupils factor into the literary sea scores. And a second part is why there's no literary sea scores for grades one and two? Yeah, absolutely. So our special ed students are in all of that data that you saw up there. So if they're not separated out, we put everybody together in that category. And when we look at the data, we as staff, we do pull it apart because we want to make sure our special ed students are making the most growth in the shortest period of time to ensure that they're successful in our closing studies. Absolutely. Why don't we as the public know how well the special ed pupils are doing? And are they really driving the dramatic increases in literacy? Some of them are. Why we don't report out separately is because our special ed, the number of special education students we currently have is actually small enough. It's under 20 between both buildings that it would be identifiable in some grade levels, especially when you pull it out grade level by grade level. I could look at and let me give you some, let me give myself some time to think about how I can report that out to you so you can see that. So it's not identifiable. The only reason I'm really curious is there's a dramatic increase in those students who are COVID special in some way that that learning situation that could be translated into your quote or mainstream body and drive growth even faster than it is now. Absolutely. And we have taken some strategies that started with special education using what's called direct instruction, a specific program. And we started with special education and we now have implemented that what we call tier two or intervention students who are not more than two years behind, but they do have some gaps within their literacy instruction and we are seeing that data for those students to help close those gaps. And every teacher has been trained in direct instruction. So both our classroom teachers, our special educator and our interventionists, because there are lots of strategies within that overview training that benefit all students, including giving an example in the non-example, making sure you repeat the answer things of that nature. Thank you. And doing that. And then I'm sorry, you had one other question originally and we dove down. I'm sorry. A little loud in the war. Yeah. Oh, great. One and two in literacy. Those students do not take that assessment. It's computer based. They'll take it for the first. They do what's called a benchmark assessment where they read with their teacher one on one and we check for fluency and comprehension skills during that. Thank you. And just to, it was a comment from online about saying the name clearly of anybody who's asked the question. I think we can put it in a little plug here. One of the big incentives that. Superintendent can Arnie has talked about since he came here was this idea of. Special ed is expensive. And that the idea is that you want to be moving kids. You want to be creating a classroom that's teaching kids in a way that they don't have to be in special ed anymore. Am I sort of correct? Correct. You know, we should be meeting everybody's needs. In the classroom without. That means that we're all interchangeable. I expect my. Teachers and I have trained. I attend every training with them to be able to implement it. So I can step in and do it. And just like our special educators receive certain training, our classroom teachers receive that training too. So it shouldn't be, we call it, shouldn't be like they're going to a foreign country just because you change a classroom. You should be able to get the same skillset. And the same supports. Regardless of where you are. It's something that's happening. Su wide as well. Is the idea that you walk into a first grade class. In Stafford. And you can understand what they're teaching from. It's not there yet. It's a goal though that the idea of the vertical class teaching. Is the same throughout the SU. Right. So there is some local control. You can still put your own. Been on it. But the idea is there's some norms or expectations that. What we see in a literacy black. Which includes. A reading group writing about. Reading a mini lesson where you're talking about fiction versus nonfiction. I'm going to see. Those are like the big three. But I should be able to walk into every classroom. No matter what grade level. And I see those concepts happen within the literacy black. And then in a math black. I'm going to see. Number one. I'm going to see. Workplaces happening. I'm going to see. Individual or small group instruction going on. And I'm going to see investigations going on. Any further questions. For the principal and educational report. If not, we'll move on. This is a Rochester high school. Building update. I should say. Obviously there was a lot of discussion about the relationship to the. High school building. To the elementary school that's here. And the board has made some. Decisions about that over the last couple of years as far as. How we were going to or not use that building. And just say what right now we're. What's happening with that building is a holding pattern. There is a very in depth study happening. To the Envision Rochester and the Rochester select board. Into how to best utilize that building. In the future. If the town should take it over. And there's some very good. Ideas happening there. And some real possibilities. We talked about. Because of details, but it's quite exciting. That said, we still hold to the board decision. That there's no educational activity to happen in that building. Also, there was some pipes burst in the technical area. And they are still they've been repaired. So it's clean, but they haven't been finally done. There's some issues with safety about the building as far as we're using it, but we have made the decision that no educational activity will happen there. It can be used by the town for voting. It's also been used by the Suzuki Institute this summer for rent paid. And that the town of Rochester is paying funds to offset the fuel electricity costs so that Stockbridge will bear no expense in that building open while this feasibility study happens. Any questions on that? Yes, Martin. You mentioned the whiteboard value players. Did you include them as your people? Yeah, they're there. Absolutely. It's a rental fee. I mean, those are just the ones that are there and the players. Use my board request. Yes. Use my board request. Yep. And that's what they did in the last few years. I think in the fall. We were in a very competitive form and we worked out an arrangement and they, and they use the space and it worked out very well. Right. Well, because it is the only place with an audit. We did many, many models. We worked really hard as one of the players. We worked really hard to review all the seating and everything. I'm sorry. I would like to continue to be able to do this. Oh yes. Well, no, it's true. Certainly open to that. Yes. I just want you to mention that I just want to make sure. Yep. No, no, no, no, that's what we're here for. Any further questions on this? If not, we'll move on. This is. Nope. This is. This is. Sorry. What are you? So. This is usually where superintendent Konarini speaks about what's happening at the supervisor unit. So I'll go with a slide on his behalf. So at the SCU, we are focusing on math instruction and intervention as we've discussed. Also here in our customer staff. That is a wide initiative. We are investing a lot of our. As our friends, which were the COVID relief act funds towards math intervention and the math program that we're rolling out in the majority of our schools. We have an increased focus on social emotional learning and the support that are in place for students. Personalized learning and pathways program. As I mentioned, that's the flexible pathways that's an important. Process that will go through in the future for all of our students. And then increased focus on proactive communication and visibility within our community. And you see superintendent Konarini sends out community updates on a regular basis just to make sure that all stakeholders know what's happening. Supervisory and throughout all of our. Number of districts. If I may add to that, too, one of his personal priorities as superintendent is to get into the schools more. He's really made a point to be in the classrooms in the schools to see what's happening, which is, you know, not something that happens with a lot of superintendents. But it's something that he has said is a priority for him and we as the SU board, which I'm on. Supported. And really encourage him to do that. Any question on the WRVSU priorities. Excellent. We'll now go over the individual articles. And most of these are fairly straightforward until we get to article seven, which is the actual budget numbers at which point we'll get much more detail on this. And I'll be individual slides sort of explaining that from various different points of view. The terror will be able to answer for you. But first, we'll just read article four to fix the salaries in the amount of $2,000 for board chair, $1,350 each for vice chair and clerk and $1,100 for all the other members for the school district offices for the 2022-2023 school year. Any questions on that? Okay. We'll move on to article five. To fix the salary in the amount of $1,300 for the school district treasurer for the 2022-2023 school year. Fairly straightforward. Any questions on that? Okay. Did these change from prior years? No. Article five actually did increase that. That's right. We increased that. Because there is a tremendous work that the school district treasurer has to do. And they were getting paid like $700. Yeah, they were getting paid $700. I remember that. We wanted to double that. It's a tremendous amount of work. It's like five monthly, like twice a month. It's constantly. She has to deposit your checks as they come in. She tracks your deposits. She tracks, she reconciles your bank to match up with how I reconciled your bank account. There's a lot of work. And she has to sign all your checks and take on all that responsibility. It should probably be more. Right. And I think we're working toward that. But we're very appreciative. Of that work. Article six. Shall the voters authorize the school board to borrow money by issuance of notes, not in excess of anticipated revenue for the fiscal year, July 1, 2022 through June 30th, 2023. Any questions on article six? And this is what allows the school district to pay their bills and to pay their payroll until tax revenues received by the education fund and by each of the two towns. All right. And now article seven, which is the actual proposed 2022, 2023 budget. Do you want me to read it for you? Or okay, go for it. Article seven. Shall the voters of the school district approve the school board's bill to expect $4,430,385, which is the amount the school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year. It is estimated that this proposed budget, if approved, will result in the education spending of $19,321.11 for equalized people. This projected spending per equalized people is 3.1% higher than spending for the current year. So the next slides that I'm going to go through give some background and then it will take you step by step through the budget how we get to your tax rate that actually ends up on your tax bills. Can I ask a more general question before you know that? You know, and obviously the state must know, is there a difference in the cost of educating a rural student versus an urban or metro student, say a Wellington or a Rutland student, and is the cost higher in the rural districts? Yes. The driving factor with your per pupil spending is your actual education spending amount in your budget divided by your equalized pupil. Equalized pupil is a two-year rolling average of your average newly membership with waiting factors. So with the lower pupils you have, the more it costs you to educate your students. But currently in the... Good. Great. Thank you. So we're going to start off by how we started in this fiscal year. At the end of 2021 for our FY21 audit, we had a general fund surplus of $461,197. In the fiscal year of 2021, our Sudrana surplus of $765. Again, this is based on all your audit numbers. So at the end of 2021, your surplus was $461,962. At the end of quarter two, you were projecting an additional surplus of $300,881. Did you say an additional surplus? It would be the current projected surplus, $300,881. I was at the end of quarter two. So a lot of expenses hadn't been realized at that point also. But that is not technically an additional surplus. Current projected surplus for this current fiscal year. Plus the $400. Of what's not used up the $400, which we'll get through. So budget changes. If you have your mailer, the actual budget for the expenditure side starts on page 31. And this is rolled up by function and object code. Function is generally what it is. So it's general education, foreign language, each of your departments. And then the object is salaries, benefits, contracted services, and so on. So budget changes. The spending from 2021 to 2022 increased $101,633. Your revenue has decreased by $71,069, which results in your education spending. Again, this is what you collect in property taxes and what you receive from the Ed Fund. Increases $172,702. Your equalized pupil did increase this year. It went from $172.19 to $175.95, which is a 3.76 increase. I just want to stop you there, Tara. It is actually on page 21. Oh, the actual budget is what I was referring to. This is not what you were going through. It is on page 21. Sorry, no worries. So the per pupil spending, as we outlined in the article itself, which is what you have to vote on, increased $581.07. And that's a direct result of your spending increasing and your revenue decreasing, resulting in having to collect more funds from the Ed Fund in property taxes. So the budget priorities, as you'll see throughout the expenditure budget, are to continue to offer a rigorous creative education that works with all the resources available. And we are increasing and continuing offerings that may be reviewed previously in the presentation. Your outdoor education, world language, math intervention, and music and art. So those are the areas in the budget that we focused on. So each year, if you have a surplus, by statute, you are required to use the surplus to offset what you need to collect in taxes, or you as the voters can elect to allow the school board to transfer some of that surplus into special revenue funds, like building reserve funds, capital improvement funds, tuition reserve funds. So historically in the statutes there, I'm not going to bore you with reading that. So over the years, in the 2018-2019 budget, the surplus that you've used was $181,639 to offset as offsetting revenue. In the 1920 budget, you used $236,516. In 2021, you used $142,987. And last year for 2122, we used $173,600. And in this fiscal budget, it approved, we are using $150,000 to offset tax revenue. So the next slide is the actual revenue budget, which you can find on page. And let me just interrupt if you have questions as we're going through these pages. Please, you know, make yourself known. I think you can raise your hand on online and certainly raise your hand if you have any questions. So Tara, do I? This is Walter Gallup again. Do I assume that when you are offsetting it by $150,000, you're anticipating the surplus is going to drop from 301 to 150? That is what we're using portion of the surplus for offsetting revenue. As there's further articles down in your warning, your board is also asking you to use some of your surplus to go into your reserve funds. Thank you. So the revenue budget is on page 43 of your mailer. This slide here just so it doesn't cause confusion is structured a little bit differently than your actual revenue budget. So just be prepared for that. So prior to your balance carry forward, which is what we're just discussing, we reduced that by $23,600. We increased your interest, $7,000 based on what we're currently receiving an interest in your bank accounts. The tuition revenue, we have decreased $33,900 and that's based on your current enrollment of students that you're receiving from outside of the Rochester Stock Bridge District. Same thing with the tuition for the pre-K. Those are students that you're receiving from outside of the Rochester Stock Bridge District. So that's also based on for enrollment. So we increased that by $2,816. The forestry grant, you get that each year because portions of your property are owned by the forest association. So you can't collect property taxes. So the government gives you funds for that and each year those funds slowly decrease. So the projection for that is a reduction of $652. Miscellaneous revenue is what you receive throughout the year. If you go to Hannaford's grocery store and you give the $3, you spend X number of dollars and that gets paid to the district. So we kept that at $1,000. That's just one of the examples of what goes there. The 60 transportation reimbursement. This is the reimbursement that you receive from the state of Vermont based on your transporting your students on the school buses from home to school. And that projection is based on contracts is a reduction of $522. The Medicaid revenue that you receive from the supervisor union which pays for your nurse. We kept at the same $75,152. And the grants from the supervisor union, there's a reduction there of $16,580. And that's based on the current fiscal years grant revenue that we're receiving. And it's based on your free and reduced numbers. So the applications that families need to complete to see if they qualify for free reduced lunch drives what is allocated to Rochester during Stockbridge campuses for our title one federal funds. So that is what consists of your local revenue. And then the state funding is what we receive on behalf of the state. So that's your education spending, which is what we collect from property taxes and from the ed fund. We're small schools grant, which has maintained consistency. And then the tech center paid by the state. So this is a preset dollar amount that we receive from the agency of education each year prior to budgeting that what they project, they're going to pay tech centers on behalf of Rochester Stockbridge Unified District for our students who are attending a tech center. And this is a wash and the budget is both a revenue and the same number is also on the expense line. Any questions on the revenue? I'm going to go into the funds now. How we calculate your tax rate. So we take to get your per pupil spending. It is your expenditure budget minus your local revenue divided by your equalized pupil. From there, we get your equalized tax rate, which is the per pupil spending divided by the yield less the murder incentive. And then your final tax rate that's projected to be on your tax bill is the equalized rate divided by your common level of appraisal. So now we're going to go over each one of those factors and the rest of the slides for tax calculation. Again, you start with your per pupil spending of that $19,321 in 11 cents. We divided by the yield, which based on age 737, which passed the house at the end of March is projected at that 13472. That final yield is not set until the legislature adjourns. So there still could be a potential change in the yield. And we get our first draft of yield in the December 1st letter from the tax department. So if you were following the budget process throughout this fiscal year, you would see that we use some different yields. And I go over that in the business manager's letter, the differences that we use there. So again, take per pupil spending, you divide it by the yield, and that gives you your preliminary tax rate or your equalized tax rate of the 1.4342. The merger incentives have gone away. We no longer get that. So again, your equalized tax rate is that 1.4342, which is a reduction of 22.17 cents over last year. Any questions on that before I move on? Equalized pupil. So Ethan, this is what we were about to say earlier. This is the historic view of Rochester Stocks Ridge equalized pupil going back to the 1819 school year. So you can see we've had a substantial decline up until this year where we did have that increase to the 175.14. So the yield impact. So again, the yield is the factor that we use to convert between the per pupil spending and the equalized tax rate. So again, that formula for pupil spending divided by the state yield. And it's adjusted depending on how much the state needs to collect via property taxes. So again, that's why it's gone through the tax department and the legislature. So in the fiscal year 22, the yield was $11,385, which resulted in the equalized tax rate of 1.6359. In December, when we received the notice from the tax department to use, we had a conservative option and then a not so conservative option. So we used in all of our districts the conservative option at that $12,937, which would have resulted in a tax rate of 1.4935. Again, in March 22, when they passed age 737 that had a proposed yield of that 13,472, which results in an estimated tax rate of 1.4342. So depending on which yield you end up with, you can see how it impacts your tax rate. Any questions on that? So common level of appraisal. This is dependent on each individual town within the state. And it is the comparison of your town appraisal value to recent actual sale prices. And this is the factor that converts the district's equalized tax rate to the final tax rate on the individual town's tax bills. So we take the equalized tax rate and we divide it by the individual town's CLA. So you can see for Rochester, which is the first columns on the left. In fiscal year 22, your CLA was 102.98%, which resulted in a tax rate of 1.5886. In fiscal year 23, your common level of appraisal is 95.63%, which results in a tax rate of 1.4997. So again, the factor that's making that look more favorable is the property view. On stock bridge, last year your common level of appraisal was 101.36%, resulting in a tax rate of 1.6140. And for 23, your CLA is 90.10, resulting in a property tax rate of 1.5918. And the next slide just gives a historical view, this is also in my business management report in the mail of where your CLA's have gone. So I'm going to reread Article 7, shadow voters of the school district approved the school board to expend $4,430,000. $4,000,000. Sorry. $4,000,000. Yeah. That's right. You can go at home right now. That's right. $385,000, the amount the school board has determined to be necessary for the ensuing fiscal year. It is estimated that this proposed budget, if approved, will result in education spending of $19,321.11 for Equalized Pupil. This projected spending for Equalized Pupil is 3.1% higher than spending for the current year. So although your birth equal spending will not, there are property taxes are projected to go down. Which is incredible. That's Bill. That those two things happen. Is just amazing. Yeah, we're very fortunate that we've got a combination of the benefits of being in a unified district, strong leadership, synergy, efficiencies of sharing resources and information and talents, combined with a state and federal government that see the value of providing economic assistance so that we can have a viable education system in rural Vermont and rural Vermont. Because we have fewer kids. So automatically the cost per kid. Well, cost one kid less doesn't mean one less teacher or anything else like that. So we've got that going for us in the performance of our teachers or administrations as Lindy spoke is going up. People won't believe this, but this budget this year, if you're paying, whether you're paying based on your income or you're paying by your assessed value property, it's gone down. And the number is in Rochester, if you paying by your assessed value is down over 5%. Stock bridge is less than that is 1.4. The difference is the changes in common level of appraisal, but it's gone down performance, educational performance, academic performance is up. Two thirds of our residents in Vermont pay their school tax based not on the assessed value of their property. They pay it based on their income. We're one of the unique states in this country but six states that allows that to happen. For those two thirds of our residents, school tax this year is not going down by 5%, it's going down by over 12%. Now that's not going to happen every year, but I look back the last six years and it's gone down. Now that's not something we can do forever because that's, we get into kind of, I don't know what would you call that? One year is time. I'm adding one year of time, but I just want to say this year is special, not only because of our active performance, but the taxpayer actually is going to get some relief and I think that's something to celebrate. A big question. Yes, Nancy Willing. Nancy Willing. Nancy Willing. At what point will the state trigger a reappraisal of properties? Good question. I don't know. Oh, a business manager is looking at that. It's in my report. I still haven't memorized. When the CLA is below 85% or above 115%, the town must reappraise. Otherwise, I will believe the Listers have the ability to petition for a reappraisal. I have a question. This is more for you. What happens if we have a repeat performance of one town denying to accept the budget than the other town? I wouldn't even bother speculating personally. Is it combined? Yeah, it's all combined. So the voters can find separate votes? Yeah. The overall results are combined. I mean, I got to say it's already, yeah, and that's one of the things, if you read my letter, or the letter from the board before it, really it's been extraordinary where we really could have just been sort of dusting off our wounds after all the turmoil we went through in the last several years, all for very good reasons and people really understood where we stood. But the fact is that our school, we've really created in this year a school with two campuses in incredible ways in terms of how our unifying are teaching. I mean, no big alone about this, but it's really extraordinary the feeling of, I got to say, and unless people come back and tell us otherwise, we're feeling like there's a lot of trust out there that our administration and our board and our SU is doing a good job right now or is doing the right job, if not perfect job, is doing a good job. And I got to say, I mean, it's a very exciting time to be on the board because we have such a good administrative team at the SLU level and at our school level. But I mean, the conversations we're having in our board meetings are about educational improvement and numbers and how do you do that and how do you teach the teacher to understand the results are getting back from a test so that they teach specifically that child this way to improve their scores, to improve their learning. It's extraordinary. I mean, from where we were, those of us who were on this board two years ago and three years ago, it's a complete change in how this school is going. And I credit that to that we're really becoming a school, a long school. And it surprised me when I sort of realized it after we're still sort of ready for crisis and we're just, we're not in crisis, we're in education mode and it's great. It's a great place to be. We can celebrate our kids and our teachers and the learning at every meeting and it's exactly exciting stuff that we're working on. Yeah, it feels really good, especially those of us who, you know, been around for a while. Great. We need to go on now to the other articles, I believe, right? We have no more questions. Are there any other questions on the budget? On the budget? Thank you, Tara, very much for a very comprehensive analysis. Hi, Ethan. Thank you very much. First, a very informative presentation. What I'm curious about just on the budget in general, where do we stand with the amount of money that's being budgeted for repairs, maintenance, bigger projects, smaller projects in terms of are we on track to be replacing the things that we need to be replacing on the schedule they need to be replaced on? Are we deferring things? Are we getting caught up on maintenance and filters and the various ins and outs of maintaining two persnickety buildings? Well, first thing I'll say, I don't know that you can see it, but behind us is the brand new ventilation system for the gymnasium, which I now extends throughout the entire school, right? Do we have the new ventilation system? Right, there's two pieces. There's one in the preschool classroom, which is off here, and then our ventilation system's been updated. Carl, it's like you know what the other articles are. Yeah. We are in the process of an audit with EEI services. Thank you. Who has come around and looked at all those, the boilers. Energy audit. Energy audit. Thank you, Patrick. And so they are in the process of preparing our presentation for us, but we also acknowledge in that phrase, the article 9, 10 and 11, that we are going to have to start putting some funds aside for some bigger projects. So we're not in crisis mode that like the heat's not going to turn on or something. I don't want to, I don't dare say that to a lot of people, but there's no again or something next week. But so that is kind of the goal in mind as well as we're going to be working around this energy audit. And the really interesting thing for those of you who haven't been at our regular meetings in a while, is EEI is a really innovative outfit in that what they do is they go and assess, they're doing this across the SU. They're assessing every building in the SU. And what they do is they say, okay, here's some basic stuff that needs to be done. Here's some, you know, you might want to look at this and here's the gold standard of everything to do. But what they do is they guarantee a savings on your energy costs that then end up paying for many of the repairs. So instead of having to go on to a bond vote, you actually end up paying for the repairs by your energy savings. And Jamie's been really pushing this over the last year and it's very exciting. And they were really great. We've met with them once so far as a board and they're going to come back with their specific proposals for us. Patrick's on the committee. Oh, yeah, you're on the committee. That's right. Go for it. Well, we haven't had a meeting in a while. But the other, I'm just going to say the other important thing that taxpayers might be interested in is that we're not actually paying for these services until we're being done. Yup. Yup. So they come in and say, yeah, so they basically organized the budget. You can kind of pick and choose what needs to be done. They kind of guide us in what makes sense as far as priorities. And then they get paid. Basically they're the project manager and they're getting paid for their services and organizing work. That sounds awesome. The second part of my question is I don't know where to see it in the booklet, but where can I find the current level of the various reserve funds? It's the fund balance report, Karo. Page 30. Page 30. Thank you. And that was as of the close of FY 21's audit. Well, I'll tell you right now, too, that what these last three articles are for is to appropriate money from various different places. Two, and it may sound a little confusing at first, but we're basically talking about three different building funds. One for Stockbridge that already exists. One for Rochester that exists but has no money at it. And a third, and tell me to shut up at some point if I say something wrong. And a third, which we think is the going forward building fund, which is the joint fund. And the idea is by the end of this ballot initiative tomorrow, we hope that you will approve money in all three of these funds. And that will allow us to spend money in specific places, specifically on Stockbridge, specifically on Rochester, and then building up our joint capital fund. That was sort of diving into what we're about to talk about now. And that's what these, what these accounts look like. Is the next slide, I believe. I changed that order around because it was a little confusing. Oh, she wanted to do it at first. So that's what we're doing is just fixing it. I think we can read Article 9 and 10 first, and then actually do the picture of what it would look like. Article 9, 10 and 11. Should I read all three? Yeah, you can do all three first. So Article 9, shall the boarders authorize the school board to transfer the proceeds from the dandelion building sale in the amount of $70,904, which are part of the June 30, 2021 audited fund balance estimated to be $284,554 to the Rochester Capital Improvements and Maintenance of Facilities Fund. Okay. And then 10 would be shall the voters authorize the school board to establish a Rochester Stockbridge Capital Improvements and Maintenance of Facilities Fund. All right. That's the joint one we're talking about. In Article 11, shall the voters authorize the school board to transfer part of the audited fund balance existing on June 30, 2021, estimated to total $284,554 in an amount not to exceed $63,650 to the Rochester Stockbridge Capital Improvements and Maintenance of Facilities Fund. So you see we're doing this. The first Article 9 is to put money in. Now it should be told that, well, dandelion daycare, that was taken care of a long time ago. I thought it was sold a long time ago. And the money, the problem was we set up a building fund, but we didn't know that we had to vote that money in at that time. And so that money went into the general fund and is essentially part of our budget carrying over year after year. What's that? The surplus. The surplus. In the surplus. And so we felt as a board that it was very important to identify that money as specifically money toward Rochester and put it in its own fund at the amount of the sale. So then Article 10 is to establish this new joint fund. Of course, going forward with one school, two campuses, we need to think together. And the idea to take another part of the surplus this year and put it into that building fund, which is what Article 11 does. Now that was my explanation. Do you have any questions that could then be answered by people even much more expert than me? And just to give clarification, when you look at the fund balance in the audit, it was not named appropriately by the auditors. So the fund balance that's represented there was the stock bridge reserve fund. And that balance is different than what you see on the screen because the board authorized us to use some of that stock bridge reserve fund for the generator that went into the building this year. Did you hear that? For the generator it got paid for, which is perfectly appropriate. Any further questions on Article 9, 10, and 11, which are about fund balances and funding? Yeah, Bill? I just want to commit Carl Grappi focusing in on capital improvements. So many organizations, they just live by the next year, the next month, or the next week, and they allow this accumulated back balance of un-40 maintained or you're not preparing for the future. And the whole idea of having capital improvement funds is to make sure that we are prepared, that we know that we're going to need monies, and that we have the flexibility of either paying as based on the reserve funds or using reserve funds as partial pay-downs with bonding. So we're doing something responsible here. I think it's worth the moderate support. And yeah, we're heading the right direction. Any further questions on Article 9, 10, or 11? Any further questions? I just do have a question. I had occasion this winter to come weeks and the weekends to basketball games. And it was really quite exciting to be here seeing all these little kids running up and down the court. The big problem was there was no place to sit. So we had no bleachers. And I'm curious to know if you have plans to replace some bleachers. Yes, I have four choices right now. And I'm going to send them to Tara and the insurance people to make sure I'm not buying something that they're going to tell me. I can't use because that's kind of the way it works. So previous bleachers, we had someone come to the center to do a safety audit. And the guy specializes in bleachers and he looked at the wooden bleachers and said, these are not safe. And I said, oh, well, what do I have to do to fix them? I said, pretty much. There was not even an inkling of a suggestion. So we pulled them out for safety reasons. And then Jesse, our head custodian here in Rochester, has been great about researching some different choices that will help fill that need while also allowing optimal space during PPP class without PTA. Well, it was fun to come to the game. Yeah. It's great to have people back. But I'm really glad you really are bringing in the news. Yeah. Well, and another point that I asked about today, I think it was a handful of Stockbridge kids who are also part of the basketball program here at Rochester which is the ideal situation that the gym is getting used by both students from both schools. And obviously because of COVID, the mixing of the two campuses, which was a real goal of the merger, started and then really had to stop. But I think things being hopefully going in the same direction to our next year is there's going to be much more of that mixing happening. And we look forward to that. Carl, you had a question. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Skipped article eight, the election of directors. Is that because there's really nothing to say about it? Was that oversight? It's the difference between when you have an informational meeting and the actual warning you're going to see tomorrow. So we don't actually talk about the people who are running for election here in the meeting, but you will make a choice. I just will say that Justine who's on tonight, Kavakis is a bright end. It just sort of happened the timing that her name was not put in for the ballot. But is that correct, Justine, that you should be right in for the Stockbridge candidate? Well, you're muted, Justine. You're muted, Justine. Actually, it looks like my phone's not working. Oh, I think you're right. Sorry, I couldn't unmute this whole time. I believe I am a right in. I did a little bit of Facebook social media campaigning. But yeah, that's my understanding as well. And then the two other candidates were just Robert Mare and myself. So yeah, it's just a slight disconnect between informational meeting and the actual ballot that you'll see tomorrow. There will be another Article 8 will be there and that will be the candidate. Very good, thank you. Any further questions? I'd just like to compliment you on a fine report. Thank you. And the explanation tonight. Great. Thank you so much, Tara. And on media specialist, whose name is the person who helped. Oh, Kate McLean. Kate McLean. Kate McLean and she works through the SU. She works through the SU. And she, because I know personally, as Jenny who's in here tonight also knows what it's like to put one of these together by yourself. So it's so nice to have someone helping us out. It's really great. If anybody, any of you who read The Herald, that have noticed in the past year or so, more pictures of things that are happening in the area of school, not only Rodgers and Stockbridge, but Chelsea's have all the ones in the same SU. She's been sending me sometimes one time every week. You know, they'll be more in this week, which is great because you know, I love to have schools in the neighborhood. Yes. It's really good. It's organized. That's great. That's an industry. Get off. Any other questions? I encourage you all to go vote and tell your friends and neighbors to vote and hopefully we've done a good job tonight and you will give us our budget that we asked for for the next year and we'll keep going, building these schools even stronger. Make a motion to adjourn. Make a motion to adjourn. Seconded. Seconded by Amy, all in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you so much for coming tonight. Have a good evening.